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28 November 2011

so I'm in the shower thinking about King Arthur (no snickering) and I wonder, are medieval legends anachronistic?→[More:]

you got these stories from, say, Britain/France, or Norse folklore, even say the Middle East.. Of course the legends get retold and canonized and remade by different writers and cultures as time passes, but they're still based in a detailed fantasy world in any case. And the conceit of this world is that nothing survives because it's old--absolutely, timelessly ancient. Thus the dragons and the magic and forgotten kingdoms etc

The thing is though, we can reconstruct the history of these times. We know what kinda villages etc the British were living in when the Romans came. They didn't have a highly organized knights and kings system, which is a later economic/social/political development very unique to its feudal-warlording time. There are no mists of time to record these fantasy stories in because the social structure in the setting of these stories is contemporary with those of the times in which these stories began, or began to settle in the forms they're known today.

The basic conceit that this is legendary stuff that happened a long time ago is flawed, as a fictional crutch, cause it's based in a relatively recent and recorded world. Sad.

post by: Firas at: 21:31 | 15 comments

(I just looked up King Arthur on wikipedia and found this great quote from Nowell Myres, an archeologist, about attempts to examine whether Arthur existed: "no figure on the borderline of history and mythology has wasted more of the historian's time".")

(I've been re-reading Michael Crichton's 'Timeline', which I loved in high school, and was prompted to buy this game King Arthur and have wasted a couple nights on it already. The funny thing is back when I read Timeline I had found another sort of castles-based strategy game to play too! And way back as a kid I liked this game Castles 2, although I think I only had a demo.)

posted by Firas 28 November | 21:43

Usually this kind of thing is at least half mythology.

posted by Miko 28 November | 22:53

sure, I take it as fiction. But the fictional setting "on earth" kinda fails cause the nature of the stories stamps a chronological setting onto them, and that time wasn't an enabler of the kind of stories depicted within. Does this make what I'm saying clearer? Like, here's one type of fable, the Indian Panchatantra, in which the idea is that the animals are talking. And that's fine, animals can be talking 3000 years ago, today, tomorrow, whatever. But if you have knights, and kings, you've scoped yourself to a very narrow 'human timescale' in which we know these guys weren't around. Which is problematic cause their quests and so forth are playing out on an epic scale.

Something like Hercules' feats of strength could have genuinely gone on in the mists of time, cause strong men and 'gods' and snakes etc. have been around forever. Knights in Britain though? Just a few hundred years. It's like a plot weakness in the legend

posted by Firas 28 November | 23:12

Sorry Firas but I totally snickered when I read that.

posted by arse_hat 29 November | 02:17

Well, there's some background there.

One of the big social problems of the real middle ages was noble violence. The real knights of the time were violent, heavily armed, near-psychotic thugs with not much to except fight. They fought each other individually, in feuding groups, and anyone around, with such violence that it was a real problem for social stability.

One of the purposes of the Chivalric Tradition was an attempt to civilise this class by giving them an example to live up to. If you gave them a myth of a golden age when knights were glorious, respected and acted gently and mercifully according to a strict moral code, maybe they wouldn't be such a problem.

posted by TheophileEscargot 29 November | 04:44

hey that's pretty interesting. I've always known that chivalry was far more professed than practiced but didn't know that there was an actual effect these tales were supposed to have. Also that link clarifies the nature of devotion in (fictional) courtly love, ie. the interaction being focused not just on the relationship but on self regulation in the knight as a matter of asserting his worthiness for her. That's actually an interesting/powerful concept if you think about it

I guess when you look at something like Don Quixote you can also trace a social reason the author wanted to turn this literary impetus upside down by the time he was writing

posted by Firas 29 November | 07:05

Hopefully not to derail too much, but a friend of mine wrote a novel in which he deals with everything that is known about the possibility of pre-Norse voyages to the New World, and weaves a tail around it. He touches, of course, on the mythology, but also on the dynamic of storytelling during those times. Very good read.

posted by danf 29 November | 10:47

Mythology has its own power, and the basic tales (like the Quest story that the search for the Holy Grail in the Arthursian legend epitomizes) have a grip on human imagination. So obvious ideas like transformational or heroic questing and seasons of life and cycles are reflected in the stories of multiple cultures, as are more puzzling recurring images like the hanged god.

You might find Northrop Frye's essays on this topic interesting. Also of interest are The Golden Bough and Joseph Campbell's writings.

The power isn't in the verity of the stories, but in the way that particular ideas resonate with us as a way of explaining the world around us.

posted by bearwife 29 November | 13:07

funny you say that bearwife because this plot vs. themes distinction is exactly the point of this new yorker piece I happened across after I posted this: Adam Gopnik musing the nature of young adult fantasy

kids experience them as mythologies more than as stories—the narrative sweep is, curiously, the least significant part of their appeal. When kids talk about movies, it’s usually the cool parts that get highlighted. (“So there’s this, like, cool part where the guy—the blue guy?—has to tame, like, a flying dinosaur and they’re all on a cliff and he says, like, ‘How do I know which one is mine?’ And, so, the blue girl is, like, ‘He will try to kill you!’ ”) Readers of the Eragon books don’t relate cool incidents; they relate awesome elements. You hear about the Elders, the dragon riders, the magical fire-sword Brisingr; what drags readers in is not the story but the symbols and their slow unfolding. The sheer invocation of a mythology casts a deeper spell than putting the mythology on its feet and making it dance. If you talk to an Eragon reader, you will see why the introductory seven-page synopsis of the mythology is necessary. The synopsis is the story.

posted by Firas 29 November | 13:28

How interesting, and I wasn't thinking about that, Firas. It is true that symbology is very important aand often recurring.

Actually, though, I was driving at the importance of certain recurring plot lines, which do not depend at all for their appeal to people on their resemblance to real events and places. E.g., person goes on a heroic quest which transforms them, or a cycle of events repeats, or a human being dies but is reborn, or a person does wrong and is punished. There is a lot of all of that in the Arthur stories, including the Holy Grail quest and Arthur's incest resulting in his destruction at Mordred's hands and the whole idea that Arthur will someday come again.

Also, I wanted to say that if you haven't read the George R.R. Martin books, you might want to try the first volume, for a refreshingly blunt and honest take on knighthood and the ideals of chivalry.

posted by bearwife 29 November | 13:45

I am currently reading a book called The Ornament of the World, and among other things it covers, it discusses the genesis (no pun intended) of the whole courtly love meme that took place in Medieval Europe as coming from Andalucia, via Arab romantic poetry that flowered in Spain at a time when all three major religions lived in a somewhat tenuous but long-lasting harmony.

Very good read.

posted by danf 29 November | 14:05

bearwife, yeah I see what you mean about the parallels in the narratives. It's interesting and starts displaying some deep truths about what 'we' resonate with as humans. I'll definitely look into these authors when I start reading more deeply about these concepts.. The Golden Bough seems promising

danf that's interesting. I see your friend's book is well reviewed on amazon.. this is all meaty stuff

posted by Firas 29 November | 15:17

My favorite King Arthur books are the Camulod Chronicles by Jack Whyte, which begins with The Skystone. It's historical fiction that starts a few generations before Arthur, near the end of the Roman Empire in England. The foundation of Camelot is an enclave of Roman soldiers that remain behind (being native Britons) and preserve a vestige of Roman technology. It's fairly plausible and there's very little fantasy (other than the prophetic dreams of Merlin, but who doesn't have prophetic dreams, amirite?)

posted by Doohickie 01 December | 00:08

But I guess the point is... while Roman history is fairly well known, once the Roman Empire receded from large tracts of Europe, there was a time that was not nearly as well documented. Throw an anomaly in the mix, such as a well-protected enclave of Roman culture surrounded by uncivilized people, and it's plausible that the Roman holdovers would be viewed as an example to the rest.

I don't think we know as much about history as supposed in the OP. We know lots of pieces of it, but there were times and places that weren't documented so well.

posted by Doohickie 01 December | 00:17

that's interesting Doohickie. yeah I found out after posting via wikipedia that most of these legends set him in the 5th century

I was thinking in terms of history of archaeological proof but you're right the written record of actual events has vanished for a lot of times and places

posted by Firas 01 December | 20:00

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