Thursday, September 5, 2013
Morte Darthur
For my post regarding Morte Darthur, I would like to focus on the opening section, "The Conspiracy Against Lancelot and Guinevere." While I was reading this passage, I noticed that there were many instances where Arthurian mode was being used. First, we see that Sir Agravain and Sir Mordred show complete allegiance to the king by pointing out that Guinevere cheating on him with Sir Lancelot. On the other side of the spectrum, we see Lancelot also show many signs of the Arthurain mode, displays his chivalric attitude towards Guinevere, "'and it might please God, I would that they would take me and slay me and suffer you to escape,'"(333). Not only is her showing Arthurian chivalry here, but he is also displaying a religious based chivalric mode claiming that God would want him to die in order for her to survive. He does this again by stating, "'I shall soon stint their malice, by the grace of God,'"(332) and again, "Jesu Christ, be Thou my shield and mine armor!'"(333). If Sir Lancelot is showing all these examples of an Arthurian Knight, but is also betraying King Arthur at the same time, is he truly an Arthurian knight? Or are Sir Agravain, Sir Modred and the twelve that fight Lancelot but are slain more of Arthurian knights than Lancelot in the opening scene?
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I really enjoyed your post and also had the same question on whether or not Sir Lancelot was truly an Arthurian knight by the way he demonstrates a betrayal on King Arthur. To answer your question, in my opinion since knights are about chivalry and Sir Lancelot did not display much of that by betrayal I felt that yes in fact Sir Modred and Sir Agrarian were more of a true example of an Arthurian knight, only because they displayed loyalty and honesty which was a huge thing for knights in that time period.
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