Karen Sullivan
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226540122
- eISBN:
- 9780226540436
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226540436.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
In the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, medieval thinkers disagreed about what they called “marvels,” that is, phenomena in the natural world that cannot be understood according to the laws of ...
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In the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, medieval thinkers disagreed about what they called “marvels,” that is, phenomena in the natural world that cannot be understood according to the laws of Nature, and about Merlin, the preeminent performer of marvels. Rationalists denied the existence of marvels because they denied that anything natural was beyond human comprehension. They argued that, because Merlin was not a saint, enacting miracles with divine aid, he must have been a limb of the devil, enacting magic with demonic assistance. Contemplatives affirmed the existence of marvels because they affirmed the irreducible mysteriousness of God’s existence. They maintained that Merlin possessed a natural power, neither divine nor demonic, to predict the future. In Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Life of Merlin and History of the Kings of Britain and Robert de Boron’s Merlin, Merlin demonstrates that time is not a linear sequence of points but a web of correspondences, where marvelous portents (like dragons) anticipate the future and marvelous memorials (like Stonehenge) recall the past. One should respond to a marvel, these texts suggest, not by trying to understand it, but by delighting in it, as one responds to romance.Less
In the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, medieval thinkers disagreed about what they called “marvels,” that is, phenomena in the natural world that cannot be understood according to the laws of Nature, and about Merlin, the preeminent performer of marvels. Rationalists denied the existence of marvels because they denied that anything natural was beyond human comprehension. They argued that, because Merlin was not a saint, enacting miracles with divine aid, he must have been a limb of the devil, enacting magic with demonic assistance. Contemplatives affirmed the existence of marvels because they affirmed the irreducible mysteriousness of God’s existence. They maintained that Merlin possessed a natural power, neither divine nor demonic, to predict the future. In Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Life of Merlin and History of the Kings of Britain and Robert de Boron’s Merlin, Merlin demonstrates that time is not a linear sequence of points but a web of correspondences, where marvelous portents (like dragons) anticipate the future and marvelous memorials (like Stonehenge) recall the past. One should respond to a marvel, these texts suggest, not by trying to understand it, but by delighting in it, as one responds to romance.
Francis Gingras
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780813056432
- eISBN:
- 9780813058238
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813056432.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This chapter argues that the founding of the Arthurian world rests on otherness thanks to the role of Merlin, a character simultaneously good and bad. Examining works spanning the centuries from ...
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This chapter argues that the founding of the Arthurian world rests on otherness thanks to the role of Merlin, a character simultaneously good and bad. Examining works spanning the centuries from Geoffrey of Monmouth and Wace to the late thirteenth-century Claris et Laris, the study traces the tale of Merlin’s origins along with the story of Arthur’s conception. Whether the texts treat the material directly or indirectly through allusions, they all elicit questions concerning the relationship between history and fable, truth and lies. While early works privilege the historical aspects, Robert de Boron blurs the boundary between fiction and history, and Claris et Laris abandons claims to historical truth and chooses to underscore fiction instead. Ultimately, the chapter concludes, the genre of romance resides on the permeable boundary between history and fiction.Less
This chapter argues that the founding of the Arthurian world rests on otherness thanks to the role of Merlin, a character simultaneously good and bad. Examining works spanning the centuries from Geoffrey of Monmouth and Wace to the late thirteenth-century Claris et Laris, the study traces the tale of Merlin’s origins along with the story of Arthur’s conception. Whether the texts treat the material directly or indirectly through allusions, they all elicit questions concerning the relationship between history and fable, truth and lies. While early works privilege the historical aspects, Robert de Boron blurs the boundary between fiction and history, and Claris et Laris abandons claims to historical truth and chooses to underscore fiction instead. Ultimately, the chapter concludes, the genre of romance resides on the permeable boundary between history and fiction.
Karen Sullivan
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226540122
- eISBN:
- 9780226540436
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226540436.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
Since the first appearance of “romance” (roman) in mid-twelfth-century France, this genre of literature has been condemned by learned readers, who view it as failing to represent reality as it truly ...
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Since the first appearance of “romance” (roman) in mid-twelfth-century France, this genre of literature has been condemned by learned readers, who view it as failing to represent reality as it truly is and, in doing so, as leading its readers astray. While lengthy, narrative literary works in the vernacular at this time could treat the history of Rome or of France, it was those that addressed the history of Britain—that is, Arthurian romance—that came in for special censure. In the fictions they recounted about Merlin, it was argued, these works constituted bad science; in those about King Arthur, bad history; in those about Lancelot, bad morality; and in those about the Holy Grail, bad religion. This book argues that Arthurian romance implicitly recognizes and responds to the criticisms that were being made against it. The works of Chrétien de Troyes, the Grail Continuators, Robert de Boron, and the authors of the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate Cycles, by replaying the ongoing debates in their pages, all affirm that they are promoting good science, good history, good morality, and good religion, but in a way that asks us to reconceptualize each of these categories. If romance has always appealed to readers despite the criticisms to which it has been subject, it is because it offers a distinctive theory as to what reality is like, at odds with the dominant learned discourses of its time.Less
Since the first appearance of “romance” (roman) in mid-twelfth-century France, this genre of literature has been condemned by learned readers, who view it as failing to represent reality as it truly is and, in doing so, as leading its readers astray. While lengthy, narrative literary works in the vernacular at this time could treat the history of Rome or of France, it was those that addressed the history of Britain—that is, Arthurian romance—that came in for special censure. In the fictions they recounted about Merlin, it was argued, these works constituted bad science; in those about King Arthur, bad history; in those about Lancelot, bad morality; and in those about the Holy Grail, bad religion. This book argues that Arthurian romance implicitly recognizes and responds to the criticisms that were being made against it. The works of Chrétien de Troyes, the Grail Continuators, Robert de Boron, and the authors of the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate Cycles, by replaying the ongoing debates in their pages, all affirm that they are promoting good science, good history, good morality, and good religion, but in a way that asks us to reconceptualize each of these categories. If romance has always appealed to readers despite the criticisms to which it has been subject, it is because it offers a distinctive theory as to what reality is like, at odds with the dominant learned discourses of its time.