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THE MORTE DARTHUR: ASPECTS OF MEDIEVAL STYLE

Abstract

The main emphasis of this paper is to investigate Thomas Malorys own writing. The double purpose of the paper is, to 1) to point out the colloquial yet ceremonious speech of gentry from the 15^th century and, 2) to highlight the close relation between the written and spoken word.

Key words: style, writing, colloquial speech, ceremonious speech

Thomas Malorys style is supremely well suited to his book; it is both colloquial and ceremonious, the style of a fifteenth century gentleman. He is not scholarly, genteel, nor boorish. He thought it extremely rude to answer yes or no without adding Sir, My Lord, Madam, according to the quality of the person addressed; the colloquial vigour is everywhere apparent. It appears in a blunt directness: Sir Lancelot sank down upon his arse. (p. 55)

Malory comes out best with the spoken word of dialogue, vigorous, laconic, expressive. What richness of implication is rendered in Lancelots sharp words to the queen. Have ye no doubt, madam, I allow your wit. It is of late come since ye were waxen so wise.(p. 74) The restrained sarcasm tells a tale of personal relationships which Malory might have found it hard to put in more abstract, analytic terms, and which, had he done so, we should have found a good deal less interesting than its dramatic and concrete expression.

The colloquial energy of Malorys writing is particularly revealed by his syntax, which is plain enough, and rarely gives trouble, but which often has a fine unconcern for rules of proper relation, coordination, and subordination. He slides from clause to clause in a way which makes it difficult to impose modern bookish punctuation on his syntactic structures. Very often the interposed dash of a fluent letter writer, would be the best punctuation to separate clause from clause. This sliding syntax is everywhere apparent, but most noticeably where Malory is writing on his own, unguided by the more formal French, as in the passage on May season (p.100). Occasionally it degenerates into mere muddle (p. 150), where one feels that Malory must have been sleepy indeed; but more typically it occurs in the transitions between narrative, reported speech, and direct speech. Such a slide from one mode to another is not uncommon in Middle English generally, because Middle English writing is closer to colloquial speech than is most modern print, but in Malory it is especially frequent. It shows his confidence, his freedom from either social or scholarly anxieties; it is one of the ways in which his remarkable unity with diversity of tone is maintained.

The colloquial power of Malorys style cannot be properly estimated without recognizing what is a strange conjunction to the 21^st century reader; the conjunction of the colloquial with the ceremonious. We tend to think that the colloquial style is in every sense ruder and lower than other styles, and in its nature opposed to any form of high style. That is not the case with Malory. Within the range of the spoken word and an unbookish diction his style easily comprehends a casual simplicity at one end of the scale and a deep-toned stateliness at the other. An obvious example of his style at its highest is Sir Ectors threnody for the dead Lancelot. (p.157) It rests on the simple use of a well-known rhetorical device, anaphora or repetitio, the repetition of an introductory phrase. Malory takes over the traditional paradoxical attributes of the Christian knight, his fierceness and gentleness, and by placing them in the mouth of a brother and faithful comrade gives them more expressive dramatic force of personal speech than could be obtained by direct authors comment. Yet he does not aim at a realistic naturalism. The speech is not sobbed or gasped out, though we are told of the extremity of Sir Ectors grief. The speech has a liturgical solemnity, arising from a complex parallelism of phrase and idea which has its roots in the old alliterative poetry, and possibly in biblical parallelism too. However, sometimes, we meet with Malorys bluntness of description, or with Lancelots sarcasm. Yet, Malory knows how to keep, all the time, an evenness of the tone between these extremes, his prose having the sense of a living speech. Fall whatsomever fall may, said sir Agravain, (p. 14) or as we now say, Come what may. The words are entirely natural in their unforced expression of absolute determination.

Malorys style reflects the high manners of a society in which to speak well was itself one of the main expressions of good manners. There is a casual dignity of expression everywhere. Even in the amusing passage where Lancelots own dignity is punctured by an arrow in the buttocks, Lancelot speaks with a crisp irritation which shows a delightfully gentlemanlike self-control in speaking to however errant a lady. Everywhere in the book the characters speak to each other in terms of ceremonious address: Sir, Madam, My Lord, My most redoubted king, Mine own Lady, Fair maiden, Fair sister, and so forth.

The most striking example of Malorys language which reveals both its colloquial liveliness and ceremonious dignity, is to be found in his use of the second person of the personal pronoun.The usual pronoun of address is the second person plural, the polite, public form. It is almost always the form used between Lancelot and Guenevere. In their desperate plight when Agravain has trapped Lancelot in Gueneveres chamber, Lancelot still uses this polite, respectful form. Then, Nay, Sir Lancelot, nay! said the queen, Wit thou well that I will not live long after thy days .(p. 104) We can note how moving is that brief change to the warmth and intimacy of the second person singular. Guenevere immediately reverts to the plural and only once again does she use the second person singular to Lancelot, even more moving, when she banishes him for ever: And therefore, Sir Lancelot, I require thee and beseech thee heartily, for all the love that ever was betwixt us, that thou never see me no more in the visage . (p. 151) And so the sad, tender, cruel words go on. Lancelot never uses the second person singular to her.

Other uses of the second person singular as expressive of deep feeling, but striking in themselves, are the rare occasions when Arthur uses it. The polite public form is almost always used by Arthur, even though he is always in the position of a superior addressing an inferior. Nothing points more clearly to his grace and courtesy as a king than this. But even Arthur breaks forth in sorrow and tenderness at Gawains deathbed, Alas, Sir Gawain, my sister son, here now thou liest, the man in the world that I loved most (p. 140); and again, later, after the great defeat, Ah, Sir Lancelot, said king Arthur, this day have I sore missed thee!.(p.145) Almost as moving is his use of the second person singular to Sir Bedivere, when Arthur is desperately near death, and must have Excalibur consigned to the lake; here the tenderness becomes mixed with an imperious indignation which is conveyed by the use of the singular form. His final words to Bedivere, harsh as they must be with the harshness of all inevitable partings, are nevertheless softened, made warm and human, by the use of the singular in the final request: in me is no trust for to trust in . And if thou hear nevermore of me, pray for my soul . (p.137)

The note of intimate appeal is also marked by the use of the singular by Sir Urry just before he is cured by Sir Lancelot, and by Lancelot himself in his prayer, on the same occasion, where the intimacy of the address to God is not harmed by the accompanying formality: Now, blessed Father and Son and the Holy Ghost, I beseech Thee of Thy mercy that my simple worship and honesty be saved, and Thou Blessed Trinity, Thou mayest give me power to heal this sick knight by the great virtue and grace of Thee, but good Lord, never of myself . (p.97) Lancelot also uses the singular form in brief prayer when trapped by Agravain: But Jesu Christ, by Thou my shield and mine armour! . (p. 104)

The fullness of feeling which the singular form can convey in appropriate context reaches its effective climax in Sir Ectors noble threnody for his brother and comrade, the hero of the whole book, with its repetition, both stately and intimate in a combination modern English can no longer match, of the second person singular itself ten times: thou Sir Lancelot, there thou liest, that thou were never matched of earthly knights hand. And thou were the courteous knight that ever bore shield! And thou were the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrode horse, and thou were the truest lover of a sinful man that ever loved woman, and thou were the kindest man that ever struck with sword. And thou were the goodliest person that ever came among press of knights, and thou was the meekest man and the gentlest that ever ate in hall among ladies, and thou were the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in the rest , (p. 157) and the reiteration of thou were eight times more.

There are other uses. Occasionally the singular form simply denotes the social superiority of the speaker to the person addressed, though there may also be a touch of other feeling present, such as anxiety or a sense of haste. Examples are Queen Gueneveres speech to the child who serves her, and whom she sends to Lancelot for rescue when Meliagaunt captures her: Now go thou, said she, when thou seest thy time, and bear this ring unto Sir Lancelot du Lake, and pray him as he loveth me that he will see me and rescue me, if ever he will have joy of me. And spare not thy horse, said the queen, nother for water nother for land (pp. 81-82); and Lancelots own speech to the carter whom he asks for a lift to Meliagaunts castle: Then I charge thee, said Sir Lancelot, that thou drive me and this chariot unto Sir Meliagaunt gate . (p.84) This note of superiority is different from that of intimacy. The sometimes implied superiority can be recognised as insult. To take Lancelots adventures on the way to the castle of Meliagaunt again as an example, when he meets the archers he of course uses the plural form since there are more than one of them. But they add to the injury they do his horse the insult of using the singular form to him. It is insulting because they are socially inferior and also strangers. The first carter is similarly rude in using the singular form, being also one of Meliagaunts men. But when Lancelot has struck him dead, the second carter is very careful to use the second person plural. When Lancelot arrives at Meliagaunts castle he storms in with angry insult, calling on Meliagaunt, Thou false traitor. (p. 84)

The modulations from the polite and dignified plural to the insulting singular can be followed in the relationships between Lancelot and Gawain, after Lancelot has so unhappily killed Gawains brother Gareth. Gawain constantly uses the insulting singular. Lancelot, with noble forbearance, with a grievous sense of his own fault, and of Gawains partial justification, normally uses the plural form, but now and again is so sorely tried that he replies in the singular: Fie on thee, false recrayed knight! said Sir Gawain; It may well be, said Sir Lancelot, my lord Sir Gawain; Now, fie on thy proud words! But thou, false and recrayed knight said Sir Gawain .(p. 117) Thou liest, recrayed Knight, said Sir Gawain. Sir, ye say as it pleaseth you, said Sir Lancelot. (p.118) Where art thou now, thou false traitor, Sir Lancelot? Why hidest thou thyself within holes and walls like a coward? Look out, thou false traitor knight, and here I shall revenge upon thy body the death of my three brethren! .(p. 133)

When Gawain, after his wound, hates Lancelot no more, he begins writing a letter to him, using very polite words, expressing his changed feelings, feelings full of love and great respect for his friend:

Unto thee, Sir Lancelot, flower of all noble knights that ever I heard of or saw by my days, I, Sir Gawain, king Lots son of Orkney, and sisters son unto the noble King Arthur, send thee greeting, letting thee to have knowledge that the tenth day of May I was smitten upon the old wound that thou gave me afore the city of Benwick. And through that wound I am come to my death day. And I will all the world wit that I, Sir Gawain, knight of the Table Round, sought my death, and not through thy deserving, but mine own seeking. Wherefor I beseech thee, Sir Lancelot, to return again unto this realm and see my tomb, and pray some prayer more other less for my soul. And this same day that I wrote the same schedule I was hurt to the death, which wound was first given of thine hand, Sir Lancelot; for a more nobler man might I not be slain. [] And the date of this letter was written but two hours and half afore of my death, written with mine own hand and subscribed with part of my heart blood. And therefore I require thee, most famous knight of the world, that thou wilt see my tomb . (pp. 140-141)

There is another interesting set of contrasts in the scene where Agravain and Mordred trap Lancelot with the Queen. In insulting excited triumph Agravain constantly uses the singular form. Lancelot, calm, courtly, determined, grim, is never shaken out of his self control; he always uses the plural: Traitor knight, come out of the queens chamber! (p.104) Now, fair lords, said Sir Lancelot, leave your noise .(p.104) Sirs, leave your noise, said Sir Lancelot . (p.105) Fie upon thee, traitor, said Sir Agravain and Sir Mordred, for we will have thee maugre thine head, and slay thee, and we list! For we let thee wit we have the choice of King Arthur to save thee other slay thee. Ah! Sirs, said Sir Lancelot, is there none other grace with you? Then keep yourself! (p. 105)

The subtlety of Malorys use of the various grammatical forms is part of the structure of the book pointing to the dramatic terseness which also characterizes Malorys style. The terse dramatic realism of Malorys style, with its economic presentation of the essence of character and action mainly through speech, though apparent everywhere, can be seen with extraordinary vividness in the scene where Lancelot and Guenevere are trapped by Agravain and his followers. Malory has no love chat, no cosy domesticity. He deliberately refrains from prying into what the lovers were about the physical details are not his interest; his dialogue reflects the essential attitudes and actions of the characters, and gives necessary information. He notes physical actions as they reflect the essential situation; for example, Then he took the Queen in his arms and kissed her.(p. 104) The fighting is not only stirring, it is technically quite convincing, granting Lancelots strength partly because Malory does not deprive Lancelot of even a sword to start with. As far as we can notice, where realistic detail is really needed, Malory can select and present it more artistically and more convincingly. So Sir Lancelot departed and took his sword under his arm. (p. 103) Guenevere shows herself passionate, loving, selfish, cool, and convincing, here, as elsewhere, the most fascinating, exasperating, and human of all medieval heroines. Lancelot, similarly, reveals himself in all his magnificence, unshakable and splendid in love or battle, noble yet disingenuous, proud and adulterous, yet never failing in courtesy, and with a simple piety: Well, madam, said Sir Lancelot, sith it is so that the day is come that our love must depart, wit you well I shall sell my life as dear as I may. And a thousandfold, said Sir Lancelot, I am more heavier for you than for myself! And now I had liefer than to be lord of all Christendom that I had sure armour upon me, that men might speak of my deeds or ever I were slain .(p.104) Malory, though realistic, escapes trivial realism and constantly uses the High Language. Malorys supreme art lies in this, that his High Language, the poetic force of his style, is made up of his whole range of tone, and is as much as simple as ceremonious. Similarly, his art mixes into a whole the other paradoxical compounds of violence and tenderness, worldliness and piety, realism and romance. All is held together in a style which springs from opposites in balance, in fruitful conjunction. We are moved by the noble style of Malory who with unselfconscious dignity looks around his beleaguered world to save what he can. This is the style of Thomas Malory, the style of a medieval gentleman.

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