There and Back Again: A Malorian Wild Man’s Tale

Abstract

In Malory's Morte d'Arthur, Lancelot and Tristram form, in many ways, two sides of the same Arthurian coin. They are consistently referred to as the two best knights, and are considered to be nearly equal in terms of prowess and chivalry. Their similarities even extend to the structural parallels between their many adventures, although their actions demonstrate that they prioritize their chivalric values differently. Placed side by side, Lancelot and Tristram often present different answers to the same scenario: when faced with conflict between their knightly duties and faithfulness to courtly love, for example, Lancelot consistently chooses courtly love (and, more specifically, Guinevere) over his knightly duties, while Tristram consistently chooses his chivalric efforts over his relationship with Isode. The tension that stems from the two knights being forced to choose between two chivalric ideals results in their participation in parallel episodes in which they separate from civilization and become wild men. These wild-men episodes function as a Bakhtinian carnival and allow Tristram and Lancelot to escape the rigid confines of chivalric society and experience a temporary change in their place in the social order. Their experiences follow the traditional medieval wild-man episode type and culminate in the knights' reintegration into courtly society. This reintegration, however, does not signal a resolution of the conflict, and both Tristram and Lancelot must face the tragic consequences of their earlier choices. The carnivalesque wild-man episodes in Malory, while they affirm the world order, ultimately demonstrate that the world order itself is broken.Lancelot is well-known as the best knight of Arthur's Round Table, both by Malory scholars and by Malory's text itself;1 many scholars have also noted Tristram's resemblance to Lancelot and the narrative parallels between their many adventures.2 These similarities are not original to Malory as he borrowed his material from French sources. As Renee L. Curtis has observed, the Prose Tristan relies heavily on the Prose Lancelot, and similarities between the two should be expected.3 Since Malory borrows from both of these texts, it is not surprising that these similarities also appear in his work. While Donald Schueler agrees that Lancelot and Tristram 'should be considered correlative,'4 he also asserts that 'the whole point of Malory's comparison is that all the qualities which the two men have in common are less important than the one matter in which they differ-that is, their importance to Arthur's comitatus.5 Schueler argues that Tristram is a free agent since he does not belong to the Round Table for the majority of the tale. He is, in fact, reluctant to join and is pressured into membership by Arthur.6 Schueler claims that this free agency allows him to avoid the conflict between chivalric duty and courtly love which Lancelot repeatedly faces.7 Maureen Fries, although she rejects Schueler's conclusion, concurs that 'Malory depicts Tristram's career as contradictory to the Arthurian oath.'8 She paints a picture of Tristram as a 'counter-hero' who serves as 'a symbol of the decay of the Arthurian world from its own ideals.'9 While D. Thomas Hanks, Jr. agrees that The Book of Sir Tristram marks the beginning of the decline of Arthur's kingdom, his assessment of Sir Tristram contrasts starkly with that of Fries as he suggests that Tristram, far from being a symbol of chivalric decay, is 'Malory's chosen agent of gentility.'10 Kevin Grimm also presents Tristram as the gentlest of knights and argues that Tristram's 'jantylness' is infectious. Sir Lamerok so admires him that he begins emulating Tristram's gentility, and it subsequently spreads to other knights as well.11 In addition, Nancy H. Owen and Lewis J. Owen claim 'that Tristram himself is meant to epitomize the glory of Arthurian chivalric life in full flower seems obvious.'12Incorporating ideas from all of these sources, this study explores the idea that Tristram and Lancelot represent both the best and worst of Arthurian society. …