Alekseev M.P. et al.: History of foreign literature. The Middle Ages and the Renaissance Chapter Eleven. Romance. “Celtic tales in the French chivalric novel Knightly novels and stories

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Introduction

From the time of its inception, the Old English epic was distinguished by great originality, since it absorbed not only the Germanic, but also the Celtic epic and folklore tradition.

The plots of many French and English novels are connected with the legends about King Arthur and his knights. Along with the knights, the wizard Merlin and the fairy Morgana act. The fairytale element makes the story particularly entertaining.

Let us consider in this work the originality of the English novels of the Arthurian cycle.

1. English literature of the early Middle Ages

The source of the stories about King Arthur were Celtic legends. The semi-legendary character became the hero of many medieval legends. The image of King Arthur united a large cycle of chivalric novels, transforming and changing in different historical eras.

Echoing the French chivalric novels in terms of plot, the English novels of the Arthurian cycle have their own characteristics. French novels are characterized by great sophistication; the theme of courtly love occupies a central place in them and is developed with special care. In the English versions, when developing similar plots, the epic and heroic principles characteristic of the legends that served as the sources for their creation are preserved; the feeling of real life with its cruelty, rough morals, and its drama is conveyed to a much greater extent.

In the 60s of the 15th century. Thomas Malory (c. 1417-- 1471) collected, systematized and processed the novels of the Arthurian cycle. He recounted their contents in the book “The Death of Arthur” (Morte d'Arthur, 1469), which was published by the publisher Caxton in 1485 and immediately became popular. Malory's book is the most significant work of English fiction of the 15th century. Freely handling sources, reducing length, skillfully combining entertaining adventures, bringing a lot of his own, Malory superbly conveys the spirit of courtly knightly novels. He fascinatingly sets out the history of the life and exploits of King Arthur and his knights, combining in his book the best that was characteristic of both French and English chivalric romances.

Legends and novels of the Arthurian cycle attracted the attention of writers of subsequent eras. E. Spencer, J. Milton, R. Southey, W. Scott, A. Tennyson, W. Morris and others, interpreting the plots and images of medieval works in accordance with their views and requirements.

2. Prerequisitesformation of Arthurian myths

The Celtic element in Arthurian legends is the oldest and most significant. By the beginning of our era, the Celtic civilization had already broken up into several autonomous branches, between which there was, of course, constant exchange; they had common origins, but their paths and destinies were different, as were their contributions to the formation of Arthurian legends. It was also important that many Celtic tribes had a ban on recording sacred and literary texts. When this ban was lifted, or rather forgotten, only the latest versions of Celtic legends and traditions were recorded.

Traces of Irish and Welsh variants of myths and legends in Arthurian tales are visible much more clearly than the pro-Celtic element. However, for example, the Celtic cult of lakes and springs reached the Arthurian tradition, in which a lot is said about water: heroes spend entire periods of their lives in the depths of lakes (Lancelot was raised in an underwater castle by the Lady of the Lake), appears from the lake and returns to the lake King Arthur's sword - Excalibur. The theme of the ford, which not everyone can find and where decisive battles between the heroes take place, is also very characteristic of Arthurian legends Shkunaev S.V. Traditions and myths of medieval Ireland. -M., 1991. - P. 13.

It is also impossible not to note the widespread cult of animals among the Celts, which were often endowed with supernatural powers and were in complex relationships with people, either enmity or friendship. In Arthurian legends, horses, boars, hawks, and dogs almost always have their own names and enter into active communication with people, while at the same time maintaining independence from them.

It is interesting to mention here the role of the raven in the Arthurian cycle: according to legend, Arthur did not die, but turned into a raven, and when Britain was in mortal danger, he would return and save her. Among the Celts, the raven was a mythical character. “This bird... was associated with the cult of the Sun, and later... associated with warrior deities...” In the world of myths and legends. - St. Petersburg, 1995. - P. 272..

It would be erroneous to say that Celtic legends are the direct source of the legends about the Round Table of King Arthur, but they lie at the basis of these legends, and, probably, as A.D. Mikhailov notes, “... the Irish sagas are... a parallel, to a certain extent even a model of the legends of King Arthur. Here one should not build linear genetic series” Mikhailov AD. Arthurian legends and their evolution // Malory T. The Death of Arthur. - M., 1974. - P. 799.. Thus, it is imprudent to see in King Ulad Conchobar a prototype of King Arthur, but his wisdom and justice are similar to the qualities of the King of Armorica, and his court in Emain Macha resembles Arthur’s Camelot. “Truly, all the valiant warriors from among the husbands of Ulad found a place for themselves in the royal house during drinking parties, and yet there was no crowding. Brilliant, stately, beautiful were the valiant warriors, the people of Ulad, who gathered in this house. Many great meetings of all kinds and wonderful entertainment took place there. There were games, music and singing, heroes showed feats of dexterity, poets sang their songs, harpists and musicians played various instruments” Icelandic sagas. Irish epic. - M., 1973. - P. 587..

In the legends about King Arthur we find echoes of Celtic myths. As A.D. Mikhailov notes: “At the same time, the multi-layered nature of myths can hardly be taken into account with sufficient accuracy. Let us add that the tales about Arthur recorded in Welsh texts are of secondary origin,<...>there are quite a few Irish elements in them. In the Celtic mythological system there is more than one layer. This system developed in constant interaction and collision with the rudiments of the mythology of the Picts (who gave world culture the prototype of Tristan) and with the legends of neighboring peoples (in particular, obviously, the Scandinavians, who had long raided the British Isles)” Mikhailov AD. Arthurian legends and their evolution. - P. 796. In addition to the multi-layered cultural traditions that influenced the formation of legends about the Round Table of King Arthur, Christianity was a very effective factor in their development. The British Isles, especially Ireland, became Christianized very early and very peacefully. The Celtic pagan culture was not destroyed, but enriched the Christian one, which, in turn, brought with it the traditions of Greek and Roman literature, and they found solid ground here. It was precisely thanks to the folk beliefs that were not supplanted by Christianity, but that adapted to it, that Arthurian legends turned out to be so saturated with motifs of the supernatural, miraculous, and fantastic. Thus, the characteristic features of the Celtic worldview were even strengthened in some ways thanks to the transformations caused by Christianity.

Let's look at specific examples. Thus, Merlin probably inherited the traits of the Celtic poet and soothsayer Myrddin, a clairvoyant capable of penetrating all the secrets of the past, present and future. This character embodied all the supernatural traits inherent, according to the Celts, in the philids. Myrddin, who in medieval legends turned into Merlin, was born of a maiden and as a baby was already as wise as an old man.

The origin story of King Arthur and the description of his path to the throne are very interesting. According to Celtic traditions, “upon the accession of a new king to the throne, the filid had to confirm the noble origin of the applicant and take an oath of allegiance from him to ancient customs.” When Arthur pulls the sword Excalibur out of the stone, the magician Merlin is present, testifying to Arthur’s noble origins, and the Christian archbishop, blessing him for the kingdom, and also taking an oath from him to be a true king and stand for justice (remember how easily and quickly it passed Christianization in the Celtic environment).

Some researchers also find echoes of Celtic legends in the story of how Arthur, the son of Uther and Igerna, was born. Thus, X. Adolf writes in his essay “The Concept of Reflection of Original Sin in Arthur’s Knightly Romance”: “We do not know what Uther is - a misreading of the name, a man or God; We don’t know what exactly Igerna allegedly did; did this simple “military leader” belong to the ruling family, was he a new Hercules, was he descended from a Celtic God” In the world of myths and legends. - P. 288..

The role of women in the Arthurian cycle is also noteworthy. The Celts adopted the “custom of inheriting through the female line. For example, the hero of the medieval legend of Celtic origin, Tristan, succeeded his mother’s brother King Mark.” It is interesting to note that the name of King Arthur's wife, who plays a significant role in the cycle, is found in old Welsh texts, where it sounds like Gwynfevar - “white spirit”. During the development and transformation of Arthurian myths, the cult of the Virgin Mary is superimposed on the traditions of the Celts, which gives rise to one of the most common themes of the cycle - the theme of the Beautiful Lady.

Another image of Arthurian legends, Gawain, throughout the entire development of Arthuriana, retains a number of its original features that characterize the initial stage of the formation of myths about Arthur. Under the name Valvain or Gwolchmai, he becomes one of the earliest characters in the Arthurian cycle.

Welsh by birth, he is endowed with such primitive and crude features that the Anglo-Normans find it difficult to accept.

Gawain carries few of these traits throughout the entire cycle. They are preserved even in Malory's text dating back to the end of the 15th century: its strength grows from dawn to noon and disappears with sunset; his maternal kinship is much more important than his paternal kinship; everything connected with Gawain bears the stamp of magic, and in general his adventures have a special element of fantasy and even grotesqueness.

From the very beginning he was one of Arthur's most prominent associates and was too prominent a figure to disappear later. This did not happen, but as new characters appeared who “usurped” many of Gawain’s traits and adventures, he gradually faded into the shadows. Professor E. Vinaver writes: “The story of Gawain is especially interesting.

Gawain, as a simple and rude nature, in which traits characteristic of the pre-feudal era were still strongly reflected, from the point of view of the church and feudal norms, was morally unacceptable. Initially, he apparently acted as the queen’s lover, who saved her from imprisonment in the other world. Only much later did Lancelot, rather than Gawain, become Guinevere’s lover. And, of course, it was Lancelot who inherited many of the traits originally characteristic of Gawain.

In the story of the war between Arthur and Emperor Lucius, Gawain is given a heroic role. And at the end of the book, despite the fact that Gawain's hatred of Lancelot and determination to avenge his relatives entail tragic consequences, his image acquires a truly epic grandeur, which even his shortcomings seem to contribute to. It is perhaps necessary to bear in mind here that Malory used both French and English sources, and some of these inconsistencies are explained by the method of his work.

The conflict between Gawain and Lancelot in T. Malory symbolizes the struggle of two different ideas, two worlds. Gawain represents the old world, its deepest feelings (for example, the feeling of blood kinship). Lancelot personifies the new (although, perhaps due to the archaic nature of the historical material underlying the Arthurian cycle, and in this hero there is a struggle between the old and the new), his loyalty is the loyalty of a vassal to his overlord. In this battle, the unstable balance between the two worlds, maintained by the Round Table, collapsed.

Not only does the image of Gawain undergo various changes as Arthuriana transforms under the influence of sociocultural reasons - the image of Arthur himself acquires new meaning (in early myths, he himself, his actions and relationships with others are of great interest; in later versions, the hero, as a rule, is is one of the Knights of the Round Table, while Arthur is given the role of a symbol), ideals affirmed by legends (if at first the main theme is military achievements, then later the norms of courtly politeness are preached), etc.

Let us consider the first written origins of the formation of Arthuriana. Nennius's reference to Arthur, dating from 858, which speaks of the famous British commander (dux bellonan), who won twelve victories over the Anglo-Saxons and Picts, can hardly be considered mythological. Let us note, however, that some researchers consider it as an indication of the legend of Arthur, which by this time had already firmly won the sympathy of people. So, for example, M.P. Alekseev argues this by saying that “Gildas (6th century) does not yet say anything about Arthur, although he talks in detail about the struggle of the Celts against the Anglo-Saxon conquerors; Anglo-Saxon sources do not report anything about him, for example, Trouble, chronicles” Alekseev ML. Literature of modern England and Scotland. - M., 1984. - P. 61.. So, let's see where the literary versions of the Arthurian cycle originate.

For a long time, legends about Arthur existed only in oral folk art, and Latin sources report only the popularity of Arthurian legends in the Celtic environment (William of Malmesbury, who wrote at the beginning of the 12th century, not without condemnation, noted the extraordinary spread among the population of legends about Arthur, which people “rave about until today" Mikhailov AD. Arthurian legends and their evolution. - P. 806). These sources, as E. Faral believed, served as the starting point for Geoffrey of Monmouth, his “History of the Britons,” which appeared about ten years after the works of William of Malmesbury, since it was in this book that Arthur was first depicted in full size as a world-conquering monarch, surrounded by an exquisite court and the bravest knights.

Geoffrey lived on the Welsh border, his immediate patrons were the Marcher barons, who established new forms of feudal power in this area. His History was dedicated to the most powerful of them, Earl Robert of Gloucester, and, for political insurance, to his enemy Stephen of Blois. There is no doubt that Geoffrey had good opportunity to become acquainted with the traditions of Wales. As he claimed, he even had at his disposal “one very ancient book in the language of the Britons,” Geoffrey of Monmouth. History of the Britons. The Life of Merlin - M., 1984. - P. 5., although no traces of such a book or anything similar have survived. In any case, she could only give him scant material. It is also possible that he knew some of the legends, later completely forgotten, that circulated in Cornwall and Brittany.

It must be assumed that such legends really existed and Geoffrey drew a lot from them for his book. In this regard, it is interesting that, although Geoffrey cannot help but talk about the people’s faith in Arthur’s miraculous salvation, he refutes this legend to the best of his ability. Geoffrey's "History" immediately gained lasting popularity, and everyone who subsequently turned to this topic drew a lot from this book.

Let's take a closer look at how Geoffrey tells the story of the legendary king. First of all, in the History of the Britons, Arthur is a wise and just ruler. As A.D. Mikhailov writes, “in the portrayal of Geoffrey he becomes on a par with such ideal rulers (according to the ideas of the Middle Ages) as Alexander the Great or Charlemagne. But this is not yet the gray-haired wise old man that Arthur appears in the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s closest successors.

In "The History of the Britons" the whole life of the hero passes before the reader. The greatest attention is paid to his numerous victorious campaigns, to how he diligently and wisely “gathers lands” and creates a vast and powerful empire. And this empire perishes not because of the luck or courage of its enemies, but because of human gullibility, on the one hand, and treachery, on the other.” Along with Arthur's military achievements, Geoffrey tells us about the main features of his character, thereby laying the foundation for the myth of the “fairest of kings”: “The youth Arthur was fifteen years old, and he was distinguished by unheard-of valor and the same generosity. His innate benevolence was so endearing to him that there was almost no one who did not love him. So, crowned with the royal crown and observing the old custom, he began to shower the people with his bounty." Geoffrey of Monmouth. History of the Britons. Life of Merlin.M. - pp. 96-97..

It is Geoffrey of Monmouth who introduces into the story of King Arthur a romantic motif about the destructiveness of female charms - “the reason for the death of the powerful Arthurian state is ultimately the infidelity of Guinevere, who entered into a love affair with Mordred, the king’s nephew.”

3. Classic Arthuriana

Speaking about classical Arthuriana, it is necessary to imagine the features of the mentality of medieval man, as well as the sociocultural processes that shaped him. Only then does it become possible to understand why there was a need for precisely that mythological reality, that second idealized world, which are presented in the works of Layamon, Chretien de Troyes, Vas, Eschenbach and others. Reflecting on the history of previous eras, people cannot help but compare them with your time. But when comparing our era or civilization with others, we, as a rule, apply our own, modern standards to them. But if we try to see the past as it “really” was, in Ranke’s words, we will inevitably be faced with the need to evaluate it objectively, to try to understand how a person of a particular era perceived the world around him.

When thinking about the cultural significance of the legends about King Arthur's Round Table, it is necessary, if possible, to take into account the unique vision of the world inherent in medieval man. Much in this era seems irrational and contradictory. The constant interweaving of polar opposites: gloomy and comical, physical and spiritual, life and death is an integral feature of the medieval worldview. Such contrasts found their basis in the social life of the era - in the irreconcilable opposites of domination and subordination, wealth and poverty, privilege and humiliation.

The medieval Christian worldview seemed to remove real contradictions, transferring them to a higher level of comprehensive supra-world categories.

It is impossible not to note the fact that the “image of the world” that developed in the minds of representatives of different social strata and passes of feudal society was not the same: knights, townspeople, peasants treated reality differently, which could not but leave a certain imprint on the medieval culture.

It should also not be overlooked that (since literacy was the property of a few) in this culture, authors mainly addressed listeners, not readers, therefore, spoken texts, rather than read ones, dominated in it. Moreover, these texts, as a rule, were unconditionally accepted on faith. As N.I. Conrad noted, “the “love potion” in the novel “Tristan and Isolde” is not “mysticism” at all, but simply a product of the pharmacology of that time, and not only for the heroes of the novel, but also for Gottfried of Strasbourg, not to mention about his predecessors in the treatment of the plot."

On the one hand, the medieval worldview was distinguished by its integrity - hence its specific undifferentiation, the lack of differentiation of its individual spheres; This is also where confidence in the unity of the universe comes from. Therefore, the culture of the Middle Ages should be considered as a unity of different spheres, each of which reflects all the creative practical activities of people of that time. From this point of view, one should obviously consider the cycles about King Arthur's Round Table.

On the other hand, all social processes in Britain were closely connected with the relations between different ethnic groups, the formation of the ethnic identity of the Anglo-Saxons and, later, the British. As E.A. Sherwood notes: “The transition from a tribe to a new ethnic community was closely connected among them (Anglo-Saxons - OL.) with the transition from a pre-state form of organization of society to a state one.” All this is closely related to the change and impact of certain sociocultural conditions on the life of society.

The opposition of different ethnic groups to each other, their influence on each other, and sometimes their merging and the birth of a new perception of the world by the resulting ethnic community - all this is directly dependent on the awareness of territorial boundaries and on the relationship between people as landowners.

With the expansion of the spatial distribution of the new ethnic group and with the emergence of an awareness of territorial unity, society “was internally delimited along social lines, opposing itself only to external foreign ethnic groups.” Thus, simultaneously with the formation and development of territorial and ethnic self-awareness among the Anglo-Saxons, the social structure of society was becoming more and more complex. And further, as E.A. notes. Sherwood: “Despite... the conquest of England by immigrants from France, despite attempts to introduce in England the same orders that dominated the continent and slowed down the formation of peoples due to the emergence of classical feudalism there, in England... the English people very quickly arose . The early withering away of the feudal basis with the preservation of only the forms of the feudal system, the early attraction of the bulk of the free population to public life led to the rapid formation of conditions for the formation of the English nation...” All these aspects, of course, left a certain imprint on the further development of the legends about King Arthur.

Reflecting on the cultural significance of the Arthurian cycle, one cannot help but take into account that from the very beginning there was a sharp difference between the processing of these legends in England and in France.

In England, the pseudo-historical background that Geoffrey of Monmouth introduced into the Arthurian legends has always been preserved, although this background was constantly modified and developed under the influence of French adaptations of the same plots. At the same time, French authors of poetic and prose novels of chivalry were interested in the personality of the hero, describing in every possible way his adventures, as well as the events of his personal life and the vicissitudes of sophisticated and artificial love. In addition, in the English version there is always a feeling of epic scope, which is completely absent in the French. These differences are revealed very early - already when comparing the pro-censions of Layamon, who wrote in English, and Vas, who wrote in the Norman-French dialect. Both authors borrow the plot directly from Geoffrey of Monmouth, but Vas's novel is distinguished by the precision of its style compared to the simple folk and epic silent of Layamon.

Layamon, for example, constantly remembers that Arthur was not a French, but a British king, but for Vas this has almost no care. Everything associated with Arthur in England contributed to the strengthening of the growing national spirit and was nourished by it, although, of course, we can talk about the existence of a British or English nation during the Middle Ages. Although the Round Table is first mentioned in the History of the Britons, it is rather the development of the Arthurian plot by Laillon that is of interest. This plot, found in an early version already in Welsh legends, owed its development largely to the knightly orders that arose in the 12th century. But it is also associated with legends about military detachments of kings or leaders of the feudal “heroic age”.

In French legends, the leading principle is the knightly principle, which was an integral part of the refined atmosphere of the royal courts, which arose everywhere in that era, and served as the motivation for all sorts of fantastic adventures. In contrast to the emu, Layamon emphasizes ancient motifs that were heard in Welsh legends. As a truly epic poet, he connects the legend with bloody battles for food.

Layamon's style is quite different from Vas's, which is explained by the difference in the intentions of the authors. Thus, Layamon, in the opening verses of his Brutus, declared that he wanted to tell “the noble deeds of the English,” and this theme, indeed, is the basis for him; he loves valor, energy, power, brave speeches and heroic battles; knightly courtly adventures are still alien to him, as well as the sentimental interpretation of love.”

It is no wonder that Layamon interprets the image of Arthur completely differently than you. Where it comes to military fun and feasts, “if Layamon does not skimp on depicting the pomp and splendor of the legendary British royal court, then he does this mainly for patriotic reasons, to characterize the power, strength and glory of Britain, and not just for the picturesque -decorative, aesthetic considerations that often guided you.”

The difference between these two authors is also evident in the extent to which religious motifs are present in their works. If in Layamon all the heroes are staunch defenders of Christianity, and all the villains are certainly pagans, then Vas tries, if possible, not to touch upon the topic of faith and remain a secular writer.

One of the most prominent medieval authors who addressed the Arthurian theme was the French novelist Chrétien de Troyes. The Arthurian world of Chrétien de Troyes arose a long time ago, exists for a very long time, in fact always, but exists outside of contact with the world of reality, in another dimension. It is no coincidence that according to Chrétien de Troyes, Arthur's kingdom of Logre does not have clear boundaries and is not localized geographically: Arthur reigns where the spirit of chivalry exists. And vice versa: the latter is possible only thanks to Arthur, who is his embodiment and the highest guarantor. In Chrétien de Troyes, Arthur's kingdom becomes a poetic utopia, not a social utopia, but primarily a moral one.

In his novels, Chrétien de Troyes refuses to present a detailed account of the hero's entire life. It is as if he selects from the eternal existence of Arthur's world a typical hero and a striking episode to which he devotes the novel. Therefore, in a novel there is always one hero (the novel is usually named after him) and one conflict, around which all the action is concentrated. You can, of course, talk not about one hero, but about one love couple, but women in novels still occupy a subordinate place, although sometimes they play a very significant role. The concentration of the plot around one episode in which the young hero acts leads to the fact that King Arthur, the personification and defender of true chivalry, practically does not take part in the action. As much as the hero is young, active and capable of self-development, the king is infinitely wise, old and essentially static.

An important feature of Chrétien de Troyes's novels is the atmosphere of happy love and sublime idea of heroism that fills them. Meaningful love and meaningful feat go hand in hand, they exalt a person, assert his right to a deeply individual, unique inner world.

The hero of Chretien's novels is of the same type. He is a knight, but that is not the main thing; he is always young. Young Erec (“Erec and Enida”), coming to the court of King Arthur for the first time; Yvain (“Ivain, or the Knight of the Lion”), although he has already received recognition as a member of the Arthurian knightly brotherhood, is also young, and the main adventures still lie ahead of him; Lancelot (“Lancelot, or the Knight of the Cart”) is no exception; his character is also in internal development, in motion, although it does not undergo such strong changes as the characters of Yvain and Erec. The main plot of Chrétien de Troyes’ novels can be formulated as follows: “... a young hero-knight in search of moral harmony.” These are the main features of the Arthurian novel by Chrétien de Troyes

This is how J. Brereton formulates the essence of Chrétien de Troyes’ novels in the book “A Brief History of French Literature”: “... endless adventures and exploits with weapons in hand, love stories, seduction, captivity. A lonely tower, a dark forest, a girl on a horse, an evil dwarf - everything appears in curiously detailed descriptions and can hardly be called symbolism.”61 These novels are not built on an allegorical or symbolic narrative; they are focused on the mythological worldview, which determines their special composition and special plot motivation. “... Chrétien de Troyes can describe the ideal order in the “endless” kingdom of Logre, where everything is subordinated to the will of the just King Arthur, and then calmly declare that the knight, who left the royal castle of Camelot, immediately found himself in an enchanted forest teeming with Arthur’s opponents » Culturology. Theory and history of culture. - M., 1996. - P. 146..

For the author, there is no contradiction at all in such a transition: after all, he describes two different realities, mythologically coexisting, but not interconnected, and the hero’s transition from one to another is instantaneous and is not realized by him. J. Brereton identifies two topics that interest Chrétien de Troyes most of all: “the duty of a knight by vocation - the honor and prestige of a warrior - and the duty towards his lady.”

It is probably these two motives that cause the greatest protest from Payen de Maizières, the “author” of the novel “A Mule Without a Bridle” (if Chrétien de Troyes is translated as “Christian from Troyes”, then Payen de Maizières is “Pagan from Maizières”, a town located nearby from Troyes; we do not know who was hiding behind this pseudonym - one or more authors). In “A Mule Without a Bridle,” Gauvin, the main character, has no need to defend his honor and prestige as the strongest fighter - no one, and, first of all, the heroine herself, who on her own initiative gives him a kiss before he completes the task, doubts the knight’s success (which this cannot be said, for example, about Sir Kay, who is present here). Moreover, in “A Mule Without a Bridle” the villein turns out to be worthy of all respect - a man of far from noble origin; in the novels of Chrétien de Troyes, the villans were usually contrasted with the knights with rudeness and cowardice, but here the villeins are extremely polite and courageous.

The relationship between the knight and the ladies is also very far from the ideals of Chrétien de Troyes. Promising to become the wife of the one who returns her bridle, the girl safely leaves Arthur’s castle, apparently forgetting about this promise, and the knight does not even think of keeping her. Moreover, before receiving the reins, Gauvin dines in the company of a certain beautiful lady, who turns out to be the heroine’s sister. The latter so cordially treats the knight, who apparently fully appreciates her hospitality, that the narrator is forced to remain silent and refuse to describe the dinner.

Of course, the situations are far from the ideals of Chrétien de Troyes, all of whose characters, to one degree or another, fight for marital happiness (the exception is “Lancelot, or the Knight of the Cart,” the author wrote this novel by order of Maria Champagne). Such a controversy is a very interesting example of how the Arthurian legends expressed and shaped the ideals of the Middle Ages, especially since Payen de Maizières left unchanged the mythological basis of the chivalric romance.

In the middle of the 14th century, the anonymous English novel Sir Gawain and the Green Knight appeared. B. Grebanier characterizes it as follows: “Of all the poetic novels, not one can compare in beauty with the novel by an anonymous author of the mid-14th century, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, one of the most exquisite works among those that have come down to us from medieval literature. It is also an allegory, the purpose of which is to set an example of chastity, courage and honor - the qualities inherent in a perfect knight." As a rather late work, the novel is allegorical through and through, “Ode” glorifies Christian virtues in complex allegories and in this merges with the typical genre of the era - a didactic allegorical poem that arose entirely on urban soil” Samarin R.M., Mikhailov A.D. Knightly novel // World History whether
teratures. - M., 1984. - T. 2. - P. 570.. Middle Ages English King Arthur

As we see, the differences in the interpretation of Arthurian legends by authors of different nationalities or simply holding different points of view are undeniable. At the same time, the chivalric romances that form the classical Arthuriana have a common feature: they are built on the same mythological basis. Raising various problems or discussing the priority of certain values, they create a single ideal world, a second reality, which includes norms of behavior, qualities attributed to knights, and the characteristics of their environment.

The Normanized Arthur and his court were a model of chivalry. Let's consider what features were associated with the ideal of a knight.

The knight had to come from a good family. True, sometimes they were knighted for exceptional military exploits, but almost all the knights of the Round Table flaunt their birth, among them there are many royal sons, almost everyone has a luxurious family tree.

A knight must be distinguished by beauty and attractiveness. Most Arthurian cycles provide a detailed description of the heroes, as well as their attire, emphasizing the external advantages of the knights.

The knight needed strength, otherwise he would not be able to wear armor that weighed sixty to seventy kilograms. He showed this strength, as a rule, in his youth. Arthur himself pulled out a sword stuck between two stones when he was very young (however, there was some magic involved).

A knight must have professional skills: control a horse, wield a weapon, etc.

A knight was expected to be tireless in his pursuit of glory. Glory required constant confirmation, overcoming more and more new challenges. Yvain from Chrétien de Troyes' novel "Yvain, or the Knight of the Lion" cannot remain with his wife after the wedding. Friends make sure that he does not become pampered in inaction and remembers what his fame obliges him to do. He had to wander until the opportunity came to fight with someone. There is no point in doing good deeds if they are destined to remain unknown. Pride is completely justified, as long as it is not exaggerated. Rivalry over prestige leads to stratification within the fighting elite, although in principle all knights are considered equal, symbolized in the Arthurian legends by the Round Table at which they sit.

It is clear that with such constant concern for prestige, courage is required from a knight, and the heaviest accusation is the accusation of lack of courage. The fear of being suspected of cowardice led to a violation of the elementary rules of strategy (for example, Erec in Chrétien de Troyes’ novel “Erec and Enida” forbids Enide, who is riding ahead, from warning him about the danger). Sometimes this ended in the death of the knight and his squad. Courage is also necessary to fulfill the duty of fidelity and loyalty.

The relentless rivalry did not violate the solidarity of the knightly elite as such, a solidarity that extended to the enemies who belonged to the elite. In one of the legends, a simple warrior boasts that he killed a noble knight of the enemy camp, but the noble commander orders the proud man to be hanged.

If courage was necessary for a knight as a military man, then with his generosity, which was expected of him and which was considered an indispensable property of a nobleman, he benefited the people dependent on him and those who glorified the exploits of knights at the courts in the hope of a good treat and gifts suitable for the occasion. It is not for nothing that in all the legends about the Knights of the Round Table, not the least place is given to descriptions of feasts and gifts in honor of a wedding, coronation (sometimes coinciding) or some other event.

A knight, as is known, must remain unconditionally faithful to his obligations towards his equals. The custom of making strange knightly vows, which had to be fulfilled contrary to all the rules of common sense, is well known. Thus, the seriously wounded Erec refuses to live at least a few days in King Arthur’s camp to allow his wounds to heal, and sets off on a journey, risking death in the forest from his wounds.

Class brotherhood did not prevent the knights from fulfilling the duty of revenge for any insult, real or imaginary, inflicted on the knight himself or his loved ones. The marriage was not particularly strong: the knight was constantly outside the house in search of glory, and the wife who was left alone usually knew how to “reward” herself for his absence. The sons were brought up at the courts of others (Arthur himself was brought up at the court of Sir Ector). But the clan showed unity; when it came to revenge, the entire clan also bore responsibility. It is no coincidence that in the Arthurian cycle such an important role is played by the conflict between two large rival groups - the adherents and relatives of Gawain, on the one hand, and the adherents and relatives of Lancelot, on the other.

The knight had a number of obligations towards his overlord. Knights were charged with special gratitude to the one who ordained them to knighthood, as well as care for orphans and widows. Although the knight was supposed to provide support to anyone in need of help, the legends do not speak of a single weak man offended by fate. On this occasion, it is appropriate to quote M. Ossovskaya’s witty remark: “Even, the Knight of the Lion, protects offended girls wholesale: he frees from the power of a cruel tyrant three hundred girls who, in cold and hunger, must weave cloth from gold and silver threads. Their touching complaint deserves to be noted in the literature devoted to exploitation” Ossovskaya M. The Knight and the Bourgeois. - M., 1987. -, S. 87..

It was not so much the victory that brought glory to the knight, but his behavior in battle. The battle could have ended in defeat and death without damaging his honor. Death in battle was even a good ending to the biography - it was not easy for the knight to come to terms with the role of a frail old man. The knight was obliged to give the enemy equal chances whenever possible. If the enemy fell from his horse (and in armor he could not climb into the saddle without outside help), the one who knocked him out also dismounted to equalize the chances. “I will never kill a knight who fell from his horse! - exclaims Lancelot. “God protect me from such shame.”

Taking advantage of an enemy's weakness did not bring glory to the knight, and killing an unarmed enemy covered the killer with shame. Lancelot, a knight without fear and reproach, could not forgive himself for having somehow killed two unarmed knights in the heat of battle and noticed it when it was too late; he made a pilgrimage on foot wearing only a tailored shirt to atone for this sin. It was impossible to strike from behind. The knight in armor had no right to retreat. Anything that could be considered cowardice was unacceptable.

The knight, as a rule, had a lover. At the same time, he could only show adoration and care for a lady of his own class, who sometimes occupied a higher position in relation to him. Contrary to popular belief, sighs from afar were the exception rather than the rule. As a rule, love was not platonic, but carnal, and a knight experienced it for someone else’s wife, not his own (a classic example is Lancelot and Guinevere, Arthur’s wife).

Love had to be mutually faithful, lovers had to overcome various difficulties. The most difficult test that the lady of his heart could subject a lover to is Lancelot's Guinevere, whom he saves at the cost of dishonor. The lover is looking for Guinevere, who has been kidnapped by evil forces, and sees a dwarf riding on a cart. The dwarf promises Lancelot to reveal where Guinevere is hidden, provided that the knight gets into the cart - an act that can dishonor the knight and make him the subject of ridicule (knights were carried in a cart only for execution!). Lancelot finally decides to do this, but Guinevere is offended by him: before getting into the cart, he took three more steps.

The Church tried to use chivalry to its advantage, but the Christian shell of chivalry was extremely thin. Adultery was considered a sin and was officially condemned, but all sympathies were on the side of the lovers, and at God's trial (ordeals) God allowed himself to be easily deceived when it came to a treacherous spouse. Guinevere, whose affair with Lancelot lasted for years, swore that none of the eleven knights sleeping in the neighboring chambers entered her at night; Lancelot, who enjoyed this privilege, was the twelfth knight not included in the calculations. This oath was enough to save the queen from being burned at the stake. Deceived husbands often have a heartfelt affection for their wife's lover (this is how King Arthur treats Lancelot). God, too, judging by the fact that the bishop guarding Lancelot’s body dreams of angels carrying the knight to heaven, forgives sinful love.

Social relations of the Middle Ages were primarily interpersonal, that is, mostly direct and immediate. Establishing a connection between a lord and a vassal implied the acceptance of certain obligations by both parties. The vassal was obliged to serve his lord, provide him with all possible assistance, and remain faithful and devoted. For his part, the lord had to patronize the vassal, protect him, and be fair to him. Entering into this relationship, the lord accepted solemn oaths from the vassal (the ritual of homage), which made their connection unbreakable.

The peasant was obliged to pay a quitrent to the feudal lord, and he was obliged to protect his peasants, and in case of famine, feed them from his reserves. There was a very clear division of labor: not freedom and dependence, but service and fidelity were the central categories of medieval Christianity. That is why in Arthurian legends it is always very carefully sorted out who was whose squire and who was whose vassal. However, the hierarchy of privilege, freedom, dependence and lack of freedom was also a hierarchy of services. In feudal society, social roles were very clearly divided and defined by custom or law, and the life of each person depended on his role.

It is impossible not to notice that in the legends very close attention is paid to material culture; Moreover, the real requirements for it, determined by the necessity of life, are closely linked with the mythical qualities with which medieval authors generously endow all kinds of armor (not pierceable with conventional weapons), weapons (piercing enchanted armor), cups (from which only those faithful to their ladies for knights), cloaks (which can only be worn by the same ladies), etc.

Let's take a closer look at some examples. Speaking about the material culture reflected in the legends of the Arthurian cycle, one cannot help but notice that a very large place is devoted to descriptions of war horses, weapons and clothing. And it is not surprising - the function of the knight was to fight: to defend his possessions, sometimes to increase them by capturing neighboring ones, or simply to maintain his prestige by taking part in tournaments (after all, you should think seriously before you try to seize, for example, the land of a knight who won several brilliant victories at the last tournament and was recognized as the strongest).

The war horse is actually one of the most important pieces of equipment for a knight in battle. The horses were trained in a special way, and they often helped their masters by rearing up or moving aside in time. Each war horse had its own name, it was groomed and cherished. Many legends tell of horses that spoke humanly and often gave very good advice to their masters. Considerable attention was paid to the description of the armor and weapons of the knights, the reliability and convenience of which were important for success in the campaign and victory in the tournament. The knight's weapons, as a rule, consisted of a sword and a spear, sometimes a lance. Often the sword was a family heirloom, had its own history, a name, often symbolic (some researchers give the following interpretation of the name of Arthur’s sword: Excalibur - “I cut steel, iron and everything”); When knighted, a sword was a mandatory attribute.

The clothing of knights is described in great detail in legends from the point of view of its functional significance. Before battle, clothes are put on under the armor; it must be sewn in such a way that the armor does not rub the skin, and the metal of the armor, hot in the heat, does not touch the body. Traveling clothing was lighter to make long journeys less tiring - a constant feature of chivalric romances - and to provide protection for the knight.

The description of the ladies' clothing also allows us to judge its functional significance: it is comfortable and practical when the lady is a housewife and is engaged in practical activities (she constantly has to go down to the basements, climb the towers); the elegance of clothing is of primary importance only if it is ceremonial (in this case, fabrics, gold tassels, furs, decorations are described in detail), and color is also taken into account, since in addition to the heraldic meaning, it can be used to emphasize the beauty of the hero or heroine.

Almost every work of the Arthurian cycle features some kind of castle - enchanted, impregnable, or one that a lovely lady promises with her hand and heart to the knight after he completes his task.

To understand why such an important role in chivalric romances is often given to castles and those who inhabit them, let us dwell in more detail on a number of historical facts.

The first fortification built by order of William the Conqueror immediately after the landing of his troops in England was the motte, a fortification previously unknown in the British Isles. At first, the motte was an earthen hill surrounded by a moat. At its top, a wooden tower was built, the foundation of which was powerful logs dug into the ground. It was these fortifications that the Normans used as strongholds in Hastings. On the territory of England they erected many mottes, with their help strengthening their dominance in the conquered lands.

Usually the motte had the shape of a truncated cone or hemisphere; the diameter of its base could reach 100 m, and its height - 20 m. In most cases, a bailey was adjacent to the motte - an area fenced with an earthen rampart, a ditch, and a palisade. This double line of earthworks was called a motte and bailey castle. Another type of medieval building is a miniature bailey on the flat top of an embankment with a diameter of 30 to 100 m with the obligatory ditch and palisade. Some baileys served only as cattle pens. Small earthen fortresses were also built everywhere, with pens for livestock also adjacent to them.

Using the labor of peasants, it was possible to relatively quickly carry out earthworks associated with the construction of fortifications. The advantage of the motte was that, apart from the wooden superstructure, it was practically impossible to destroy.

Life in the castle presented the warriors from the lord’s retinue with a choice: either maintain a relationship of camaraderie, or constantly be at enmity with each other. In any case, one had to be tolerant of others and, for this, adhere to certain rules of behavior or, at least, avoid violence.

The moral norms established in the palisaded world later, at the second stage of the development of feudal society, at the end of the 11th century, inspired the troubadours. Their hymns glorified chivalry and love, but in fact they glorified two social achievements - stabilization and the development of new space. Many famous knights were at first simple warriors in the retinue of the feudal lord, but received a high rank for the valor shown in battles. At the same time, a warrior could not achieve honors unless he behaved like a real knight.

Mott also influenced the rural population. In myths, often after getting rid of the cruel beasts that inhabited the castle, or after liberating it from witchcraft, crowds of jubilant, singing and dancing peasants appeared in the formerly deserted area, thanking the knight for his protection. Many farms became dependent on the feudal lord, to whom the peasants were now obliged to pay taxes.

With the change of generations, social balance was gradually established. New relations consolidated the class community of lords, which weakened the sense of constant danger. Castles opened their gates to friends and neighbors, wars gave way to tournaments, and family coats of arms now adorned knights' shields. Where previously cunning and cruelty reigned, now valor and generosity were praised. Thus, from the second stage of the development of feudalism in the setting of the medieval motte, the foundations of the legacy that this era left to descendants and which rightfully earned the name “castle culture” began to be laid.

Conclusion

With the passing of the Middle Ages, the Arthurian cycle was not destined to develop further; True, in fairy tales (Scottish, Irish, English) Arthur appeared, waiting with his knights for the moment of awakening, or Merlin, helping one or another fairy-tale character, but this was the extent of the matter until the 19th century came.

The fact is that in the 17th-18th centuries, myth-making on knightly themes practically did not exist, since feudal ideals were not only not relevant, but could slow down and interfere with the development of society, which explains their abandonment at this stage. Once again, interest in the Middle Ages and the ideals associated with it appears only among the pre-Romanticists (Macpherson’s “Songs of Ossian”). Romantics pick up medieval themes. As bourgeois ideology, focused primarily on material values, causes more and more protest, medieval themes and value systems based on the traditions of chivalry are increasingly used as counteraction.

During the development of the Arthurian cycle, the underlying Celtic mythology largely disappeared from it. “The world of Arthurian legends itself acquired mythological features. Camelot, the Round Table, the brotherhood of knights, and the search for the Grail became new mythologies. It was in this capacity that they were perceived already at the end of the Middle Ages. Therefore, the appeal to Arthurian legends in the 19th-20th centuries by ATennyson, R. Wagner, W. Morris, O. C. Swinburne, D. Joyce (in Finnegans Wake) and many others revived old myths, but the main mythologemes were here not the motives of Celtic folklore, but the ideas of the courtly Middle Ages.” The above authors saw a moral and ethical ideal in the legends of King Arthur; The Pre-Raphaelites (Dante Gabriel Rossetti and others), under the impression of Arthuriana, created their own artistic style, drawing from her the impetus for creativity.

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1 . The novel as a genre emerges and develops during the Mature Middle Ages throughout the 12th century, and is formed and functions within the knightly class. The main area where the novel was born was the northern and central lands of France. Initially, a novel was understood as a work of secular content, written in one of the Romance languages, and not in classical Latin. As the chivalric romance developed in Western European literature of the Middle Ages, it acquired genre definition: as a large form of epic, showing a significant period of the hero’s life through narration and description. The chivalric novel is formed under the influence of a variety of factors: modern chivalry, the era of the Crusades, ideas about the ideal knight, epics and heroes of antiquity, folk epic songs and heroic epics, oriental fairy tales, Christian hagiographies. But the decisive influence on the genesis of the chivalric romance was exerted by literary adaptations of Celtic legends about the tribal leader Arturos.

2 . The chivalric novel is formed gradually and begins its development with the novels of the “ancient cycle”. These novels cannot be considered strictly knightly, since they have not yet found a way to combine love and knightly deeds. The hero's behavior still has a state rather than a personal orientation, although the characters' characters lose their uniqueness and are subject to psychological development. Historical novels based on ancient plots cannot be called historical, since ancient heroes are transferred to the knightly modernity of the 12th century. The meaning of turning to the heroes of antiquity in a knightly novel was the need to establish successive connections between modern knighthood and ancient and famous heroes in order to create the illusion of a long stay in the world of chivalry estates. In addition, already in these novels one finds a desire to create the ideal of a knight and to show ways to achieve this ideal. Thus, “Alexandria” by Lambert de Thor and Alexander de Bernay shows how Alexander the Great was raised and trained to become an exemplary knight and hero: in addition to the arts of combat and horse riding, Alexander learns the art of hunting, playing chess, writing, and counting and astronomy. True, Alexander directs his abilities more to understanding the world (he rises in a cage, carried by two vultures, under the clouds, and descends to the bottom of the sea) than to the search for love and glory, which would define him as a modern standard knight.

3 . Chivalric ideals and the knightly dream of an ideal monarch found expression not in the novels of the “ancient cycle,” which contributed to the formation of the genre tradition, but in the novels of the “Arthurian cycle,” the origins of which lie in Celtic and Welsh legends and their later adaptations. The most productive material for a knightly romance was the legend of the tribal leader of the Britons Arthur or Arturos (Y century AD), who united the Celtic tribes in the fight against the Anglo-Saxons. The cleric and poet Geoffrey of Monmouth in the Latin chronicle “History of the Kings of Britain” (1136) depicts Arthur (Arturos) as a pan-European monarch. And the historiographer and poet Robert Vas, in his French adaptation of the chronicle, strives not so much to give Arthur the features of an ideal king, but to develop the plot and political subtext of the chronicle. You are introduced to the idea of knightly brotherhood, the image of the Round Table, develops themes of betrayal and deceit of vassals, adultery, and introduces magical, fairy-tale characters - Merlin, Morgana. For Vas, Arthur’s kingdom is relegated to the past; such distancing expressed a reproach for modernity, which is far from the ideals of the knightly brotherhood. The utopian character of King Arthur’s state in Vasa’s interpretation is characterized by G. Stadnikov: “The figurative personification of the main principle of this “state” is the Round Table - the table of harmony, friendship, peace. Sitting at this table, all knights are equal. Therefore, the “Breton cycle”, or the “King Arthur” cycle, is also called the “Round Table” cycle” 47. In the “Arthurian novels” the traditional, formulaic plot frame is the image of “a picture of the court of King Arthur as the focus of ideal chivalry in its new understanding..... Hence the pilgrimage of all heroes to this court, as well as the inclusion in the Arthurian cycle of plots initially alien to him,” since it is impossible was to become a perfect knight, the hero of the novel, “in the sense of military exploits and high love, without having lived or “worked” at the court of King Arthur” 48. The “Arthurian cycle” as the most specific expression of the chivalric romance takes shape in the Western European literary tradition in the works of C. de Troyes.

Little is known about the life of Chrétien de Troyes (Chrestien of Troyes). He created his most significant works at the court of Mary of Champagne (from 1164), then found a new patron, Philip of Flanders (1169-1188), later his traces are lost. In Chretien's novels, the world of King Arthur - the embodiment of ideal chivalry - arose indefinitely and lasts forever as a guarantor of the continued existence of the knightly class. This world is ideal, transhistorical and beyond the limits of reality. The heroes of Chrétien's novels accomplish feats and fall in love in an ahistorical world, opposed to real reality. The moral measure of a knight’s behavior becomes a feat - an “adventure”, that is, a feat performed in the name of love, which also morally shapes the knight. Chretien's main problem is the relationship between love and adventure, since an exemplary knight is a knight in love. The conflict between love and adventure leads Chrétien to the idea of direction, the moral meaning of adventure, which ceases to be an end in itself, but has a task and a result that has a moral impact on the knight. “Adventure” not only glorifies the knight, but also educates him and shapes him spiritually. This determines the persistent motive in Chrétien’s novels for seeking adventure, choosing a path, including, and sometimes primarily, in an ethical sense. The higher the ethical orientation of the hero’s behavior, the more sublime and noble his image.

Solving the problem of the relationship between love and knightly feat, C. de Troyes emphasizes the creative power of love, under the influence of which the feat acquires an ethical orientation. Chrétien's novels affirm the power of the human personality. The characters seek support only in themselves, which is why their personal experiences, especially love ones, are examined in such detail. Already Chrétien's first novel, Erec and Enide (c. 1170), raises the problem of the compatibility of love and marriage, as well as happy marital love and chivalry. The test that Erek assigns to himself as a knight and Enide as a loving wife is carried out after the wedding of the heroes. Thus, the novel, already in its genesis, outlines ways to overcome the stereotype associated with the idea of a happy ending as a wedding of the heroes. In “Cliges” (1175), Chrétien raises the problem of adultery, which was relevant for his era. Emperor Alys is married to the German princess Fenisa, who is in love with his nephew Cliges. The passion of the young people is mutual, but they exclude the very thought of adultery: every night Fenisa gives Alice a magic drink that puts him to sleep, and when the emperor dies without denigrating the innocence of his wife, Klizhes and Fenisa enter into a legal marriage. G.K. Kosikov believes that the motif of the magic drink and the love triangle that developed between the crowned uncle, his nephew and Fenisa was chosen by Chrétien in polemics with the popular legends about Tristan and Isolde and their first literary adaptations. 49

In the novel “Ivain, or the Knight of the Lion” (between 1176-1181), the hero is shown in development, the process of character formation is depicted. Chretien, creating a psychological portrait of the hero, turns to a dynamic portrait, introspection and analytical description of the hero’s feelings, direct authorial characteristics. Here Chretien again raises the problem of the meaningfulness and moral orientation of the feat. The famous knight of the Round Table, Ivain, defeats the Black Knight, guardian of the forest spring, in a fair duel. Hiding from pursuit, Ivain hides in the castle of the knight he has just killed. The help of a reasonable maid, who supplies the hero with an invisibility cap, helps him hide. Iain is shocked by the depth of grief and the beauty of the widow Claudine, and he decides to marry her at all costs. Again with the help of a reasonable maid, who inspires the mistress of the castle that no one can better guard her and the source than the one who defeated her husband, Ivain manages to become Claudine’s husband. Although the union, at least on Claudine’s part, was concluded for completely rationalistic reasons, the newlyweds love each other. But Ivain is bored and asks his wife for permission to go to King Arthur for a year. In feasts and fun, time flies by unnoticed, Ivain frivolously forgets about the appointed time, and when he returns, he finds an empty castle. Unhappy Ivain does not know where to look for Claudine and, out of sadness, falls into madness. He wanders through the forest like a wild animal, sleeping on the damp ground. In such a pitiful state, one day Claudine discovers Ivain sleeping. She is full of compassion, but cannot yet forgive her frivolous lover, because she does not know whether he has truly begun to value her love. Yvain hears her dialogue with her companion through a dream and wakes up cured of madness. Now the hero knows what to do to return Claudine: he must prove to her that he is a real knight worthy of her love. From this moment on, the hero begins to be accompanied by a lion in the novel, as a symbol of the meaningfulness and correctness of his actions. The duel with the Black Knight was caused by the egoism and self-assertion of Ivain, who needed to prove to everyone, and above all to his antagonist Govain, that he was the bravest and strongest knight. Now, having recovered from madness, Ivain accomplishes completely different feats: he frees the weaver girls languishing in captivity of the giant, and acts as the defender of a girl deprived of her sister during the division of the inheritance. Claudine is present at this trial and forgives Yvain after winning. Ivain's exploits in the second part of the novel are the exploits of a true knight who not only strives for glory, but protects the weak, unfairly offended, humiliated and insulted. Thus, the adventure morally shapes the knight and acts not as an entertaining plot point or knightly fun, but as a psychologically justified stage in the moral evolution of the hero. Chretien's narration alternates with descriptions recreating pictures of everyday life. Chrétien does not skimp on descriptions of tournaments, holidays, feasts, and room decorations. Thus, the knightly novel becomes a reflection of the real life of the knightly class. Chretien is not afraid to show the inconsistency of the courtly ideal with moral requirements (“Cliges”) or humanity (“Yvain”).

The image of Lancelot from the novel “Lancelot or the Knight of the Cart” (between 1176-1181), most likely written by order of Chrétien’s patroness, Marie of Champagne, fully corresponded to the courtly ideal with its conventions and limitations. Chretien shows a knight who, even during battle, does not risk turning his back to his lady watching the fight, and prefers to fight with his back to the enemy, looking at the mirror, and the lady cannot forgive him for the moment of confusion that Lancelot experienced before getting into the dirty cart a carrier who knows the way to the prison of the kidnapped Guinevere. Apparently, Chrétien was not particularly interested in this novel, and he entrusted its completion to his student. Chrétien created problematic, innovative works, and the programmatic convention of a courtly ideal that does not express true feelings hardly interested him.

Chretien's last, unfinished novel “Perceval, or the Tale of the Grail” (1181-1191) offers a new motive for the cyclization of chivalric romances - the motive of the search for the Holy Grail. Here the love-adventure principle fades into the background, giving way to the search for moral enlightenment, the desire for the Christian ideal. It is quite natural that the problem of the moral improvement of the hero from feat to feat, the hero’s conformity not to the courtly ideal, but to the moral one, led Chretien to actualize the Christian legend of the Grail, since only a knight worthy of him can wield the Grail. The theme discovered by Chretien is developed in the German chivalric novel, in particular, Wolfram von Eschenbach shows that the reason for Parzival’s inconsistency with the Christian ideal of the keeper of the Grail is his excessive adherence to courtly etiquette, although over time Parzival manages, after many victories over himself, to again find the castle of the Fisher King and become the recipient of the shrine.

The combination of love and adventure elements in a knightly novel in the method of adventure opens up great opportunities for including a large number of inserted episodes into the novel, retarding the action and allowing to sharpen the attention of listeners. Fantastic episodes reminded the reader that he was in a world of fiction, which nevertheless contained an instructive lesson. In the chivalric novel, literature acquires its own value as a second reality, parallel to the present. The plots of chivalric romances are fictitious; they are not related to the actual historical basis, as in the epic. A miracle in a chivalric romance is equal to the hero and is surmountable. With the power of spirit or weapon, the hero is able to remove a spell, break an enchantment, defeat an evil force (dragon, sorcerer). Christian miracles were incomprehensible and insurmountable, but now the thought of the surmountability of a miracle strengthened the individualization of the hero and emphasized his human strength.

The world of Chretien's novels merges with reality at the point of ethical reference, and not at the factual certainty, literally copied reality of the 12th century. “The frame of Arthur’s court, taken from the chronicle of Geoffrey,” point out the authors of the textbook “History of Foreign Literature. The Middle Ages and the Renaissance" (Moscow, 1987) - served him (Chretien) only as a backdrop against which he unfolded pictures of the life of a completely contemporary knightly society, posing and resolving very significant issues that should have occupied this society. This issue dominates in Chrétien’s novels over the most exciting adventures and vivid images. But the way in which Chretien prepares a solution to this or that problem is free from any reasoning and didacticism, since he takes internally plausible positions and saturates his very lively story with apt observations and picturesque details” 50.

4 . The cycle of novels about Tristan and Isolde forms a separate line in the history of chivalric romance. G.K. Kosikov, referring to French sources, points out: “The novel about Tristan and Isolde has been preserved in two incomplete versions, recorded by the Norman trouvères Thomas (70-80s of the 12th century) and Béroul (90s), however they go back to earlier editions and are based on the Celtic epic-mythological collision” 51. To the given sources we can add the following, actually novel ones: the German novel by Eilhart von Oberge (c. 1190), the German novel by Godfrey of Strasbourg (early 13th century), the French prose novel about Tristan (c. 1230), as well as interpretations made in other genre forms : le “On Honeysuckle” by Mary of France, a short English poem “Sir Tristrem” (late 13th century), the Scandinavian saga of Tristan (1126), an episodic French poem “The Madness of Tristan”, known in two versions (about 1170). The above list eloquently testifies to the enormous interest that the legend aroused in the Mature Middle Ages. The list can be continued with treatments of the legend created by medievalists of the 19th-20th centuries Joseph Bedier (1898) and Pierre Champion (1938), the latter’s treatment is given in the “Library of World Literature” in volume 22 “Medieval Novel and Tale” (M., 1974).

The specificity of the source material, associated with the archaic origin of the images of the legend (O. M. Freidenberg, indicates that perhaps the characters of the legend act as a sublimation of pre-anthropomorphic deities representing the elements participating in the solar myth: the sun and the sea) 52, leads to a clash of the archaic and modern semantic principles in medieval adaptations of the legend.

In the story of Tristan and Isolde, the medieval novel faced an insoluble conflict: the love of the heroes is criminal, it violates moral norms, but at the same time, having drunk the witch's love potion, the heroes are not to blame for their forbidden passion, they resist it as best they can, but they are not destined to never completely defeat her. Even death does not put an end to their love: a branch growing from Tristan’s grave grows into Isolde’s grave, this branch is cut down three times and three times it grows again. Even the innovative novel of Chretien de Troyes, built on a rational basis, did not know a tragic collision, despite the miraculous exploits of the heroes (it was not for nothing that O. Mandelstam called the abyss of the “Gothic soul” rational!). Here medieval authors had to comprehend something irrational. The paradox, according to the observations of G.K. Kosikov, was that “all the author’s (as well as the reader’s) sympathy is entirely on the side of the lovers: not only the good hermit Ogrin, but even “God’s court” leans towards their side.” 53. The love passion of the heroes came from the archaic world; this, according to M. M. Bakhtin’s definition, is “a miracle, mystery, magic, illness” 54 inherent in the Celtic saga, and in the world where the heroes live and act, other laws rule - the laws of King Mark . The figure of this particular hero turned out to be the most susceptible to interpretation: by portraying King Mark as cowardly and vindictive, one could justify the heroes, since then Isolde would naturally choose the more worthy one. But King Mark finds the heroes in the forest of Morois and, without harming them, leaves a ring and a glove, through these symbols of marital and vassal fidelity, recalling the duty of both heroes. After this generous act, Tristan returns Isolde to King Mark. But having received wounds that changed him beyond recognition, he returns again and plays the role of a jester until Isolde recognizes him, and their dates and persecution of insidious courtiers resume again. It is the persecution of the courtiers, who reveal to King Mark the truth that he would like not to notice, that act as the driving force in the development of the plot. They answer the idea of the imperfection of chivalry and the search for an ideal, which in Chretien’s work led to the emergence of the knightly utopia of the Arthurian Brotherhood of the Round Table. The courtiers are driven not by the desire for virtue, but by the fear that the place of the childless and not very active King Mark will be taken by the ideal knight Tristan, brave and noble, who can demand from them compliance with the same knightly ideals. It is the courtiers who force King Mark to marry and have offspring so that the throne does not go to his nephew Tristan. And then Mark finds a golden hair brought by two swallows, and sets an impossible task - to find its owner, his future wife - a task that no courtier except Tristan can cope with. The insidious Odre (Champion’s transcription is Andrette) tracks down Tristan when he comes to Isolde’s bedchamber and invites King Mark to climb a tree to witness the betrayal, but the lovers who notice the king act out a very “correct”, courtly dialogue; Audre prepares an ambush for Tristan, but the strong and valiant hero escapes death; later, again pursued and surrounded, Tristan makes his fantastic leap into the sea from the chapel window, and the sea saves him.

Tristan is the bravest and strongest warrior in the kingdom of Mark, he is endowed with almost superhuman abilities, like the heroes of archaic epics. These abilities do not fit into the framework of vassal service and human understanding: the elements themselves help Tristan. The sea plays a special role in the development of events: Morholt arrives from across the sea for tribute and inflicts a wound on Tristan, from which one cannot die, but one cannot live either. Tristan equips the boat and surrenders himself to the will of the waves, considering that if the wound was inflicted on him by a giant, who arrives from the other side of the sea, the sea will either heal him or destroy him; the sea brings Tristan to the shores of Ireland, where the only girl in the world who can cure him lives - Isolde; across the sea, Tristan finds Mark's chosen one - Blonde Isolde, the sea becomes calm, and the heroes, suffering from thirst, drink a love drink not intended for them; Isolde, whom the dying Tristan sent for, hurries on a ship to Tristan’s kingdom to heal him, but the lies of his wife, Isolde Belorukaya, prevent salvation from happening. The forest is no less favorable to the heroes; in a forest clearing, Isolde, carried across a stream by Tristan in disguise, swears an oath of her innocence and undergoes a trial by fire; In the forest, the lover hides from King Mark and the persecution of his retinue, leading a solitary life full of hardships in a hut in the thicket of the forest. The miraculous healing of Tristan, his extraordinary valor, the miraculous abilities of Isolde, who knows how to heal, help from the primordial elements and nature itself - place the heroes outside the courtly world. But it is to this world that they belong and realize both their wrongness and the danger to which they are exposed. It is this duality of the situation that pushes the heroes to cruel acts: Isolde plots to kill Brangien, but then bitterly repents of her plan. Tristan more than once makes attempts to leave Isolde, to fulfill his duty to King Mark, but inevitably returns back. The courtly ideal did not allow mad love. Already in the “Roman of Aeneas” (“ancient cycle”), two types of love were depicted: the crazy passion of Dido, which is condemned, and the rational, noble love of Lavinia, which is welcomed. The courtly world could not come to terms with insane passion, so in versions of the novel about Tristan and Isolde, possibilities were sought to justify it. The love potion became such an excuse for the heroes (although not all plot episodes in this context were explained; in particular, it remained unclear why Isolde did not kill the defenseless Tristan, having discovered that he was the murderer of her uncle, who needed revenge). Unable to explain the passion of the heroes otherwise than by the miraculous intervention of a witchcraft drink, and to come to terms with it, the courtly novel, justifying it, emphasized the suffering of heroes who violate their duty. This circumstance is pointed out by A.D. Mikhailov 55 and G.K. Kosikov. 56 It was the psychologism of the novel that became the beginning of harmonizing archaic and courtly meanings.

5. Idyll novels appear in France as juggling versions of chivalric novels; they are characterized by elements of comedy and parody. The novels of the “Byzantine cycle” correspond to the plot structure of the late Greek novel (“Floir and Blancheflor”), reproducing episodes of sea voyage, shipwreck, kidnapping by pirates, sale into slavery, recognition, trial and the triumph of justice. Strictly speaking, these are not romances of chivalry: exploits are replaced by the vicissitudes of fate, courage is replaced by patience, military skill is replaced by cunning and ingenuity. The resilience of the heroes is manifested not in a duel, but in love. The plot of the novel and the peculiarities of the conflict (the love of people of different faiths) shifted the emphasis of the narrative towards everyday life. And in the fairy tale song “Aucassin and Nicolet” elements of parody appear. The warrior behavior of Aucassin, who does not want to be a knight, a country in which they fight with cheeses, in which women fight, and men give birth to children - episodes that parody the traditional narrative clichés of knightly romances. Elements of parody speak not so much of the crisis of the genre as of the development of a stable genre canon.

A specific motif of the French idyll is the lovers’ belonging to different faiths and their different social status. This conflict is resolved in favor of love, rather than religious and social norms (the love of the captive and the prince is depicted).

In urban literature, the fabliau “About the Dappled Gray Horse” offers his own version of reading the courtly novel from the point of view of the game of omnipotent chance, which, however, turns out to be on the side of the deprived and offended. The interaction of the chivalric romance with urban literature opened up significant opportunities for the development and enrichment of the novel genre itself.

The earliest mentions of King Arthur date back to the late 5th and early 6th centuries and associate the legendary hero with the historical Celtic leader who led the fight against the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. The truly “Welsh” novels also include the novels of the 9th – 11th centuries, which were included in the collection of magical legends of Wales “The Mabinogion”. Arthur in early tales (for example, the poem of the 4th century Welsh bard Aneirin "Godddin") appears before us as a strong and powerful tribal leader, who, despite all his primitive cruelty, is not alien to nobility and honesty.
Researchers of medieval literature point out that on an archetypal level, Arthur is comparable to the legendary king of Ulad Conchobar, the hero of many Irish sagas, and to the Welsh deity Bran.
Famous medievalist A.D. Mikhailov writes that “the Arthurian legends are based on Celtic epic tales, and their Irish variation is best known to us. Therefore, the Irish sagas are not a source, but a parallel, to a certain extent even a model of the legends about King Arthur.” What he has in common with the latter is that Bran suffers from a wound. This motif has much in common with later versions of the Arthurian legends, when the crippled king becomes the keeper of the Grail, the sacred cup.
The name Arthur is usually derived from the Roman family name Artorius, but at the level of Celtic mythology there are several different etymologies. According to one of them, the name of Arthur is deciphered as “black raven”, and “raven”, in turn, sounds like bran in Welsh, which confirms the connection of King Arthur both functionally and etymologically with the god Bran.

In subsequent centuries, the image of Arthur in the Celtic tradition gradually changed and gradually appeared as a wise king, the son of Uther Pendragon - for example, by the English chronicler Galfred of Monmouth (died 1154 or 1155). The poetic “Life of Merlin” and the prose “History of the Britons” belong to the pen of Geoffrey of Monmouth, also referred to in many sources as Geoffrey son of Arthur.

In these books, Arthur’s whole life passes before us - only, unlike the imitators of Galfred, Arthur is not a white-haired old man, but a strong warrior, gathering lands together and creating a great power that perishes not because of the courage and courage of his enemies, but because of for the infidelity and treachery of a woman - Queen Guinevere. This is how the motive of the destructiveness of female charms and the destructive role of women arises in the fate of a particular hero and an entire state. Later, this motif will become one of the central ones in the novels about the Knights of the Round Table. Geoffrey of Monmouth has the honor of writing the works from which an entire branch of medieval literature (not to mention the later romances of Arthur and his Knights) grew - works in which the main character is King Arthur.

No later than the 11th century, legends about King Arthur spread across the continent, primarily in Brittany, and were perceived and reinterpreted by the knightly tradition. The knightly tradition originated in Provence in the south of France and served as a model for other peoples. In the knightly environment, certain rules of courtliness have developed - noble behavior, according to which a knight must behave: be polite and love his Beautiful Lady, respect his overlord and protect the orphans and the disadvantaged, be courageous, honest and selfless and faithfully serve the Holy Church.

These ideals were reflected in the knightly novel. A special role in the creation of the genre of the verse novel is played by Chrétien de Troyes, the largest French poet of the second half of the 12th century, essentially the creator of the Breton cycle novels. Chrétien de Troyes wrote five novels ("Erec and Eiida", "Cliges", "The Knight of the Cart, or Lancelot", "The Knight with the Lion, or Yvain", "The Tale of the Grail, or Perceval") on Arthurian themes, in which he himself Arthur does not play a leading role.

The first chivalric romances appeared in English in the 13th century. In the 14th century, in Northern England or Scotland, the poem “The Death of Arthur” was created (in all likelihood, a poetic adaptation of the Latin history of Geoffrey of Monmouth). The end of the 14th century also saw the creation of the most famous English chivalric novel, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” (2530 poems in stanzas of varying lengths), belonging to an unknown author, one of the most remarkable masters of English medieval poetry. This poem is, without a doubt, the best of the entire English Arthurian cycle.
Its main character is King Arthur's nephew, Sir Gawain, the ideal of medieval chivalry, to whom a number of other works of the late Middle Ages are dedicated.

The poem is divided into four parts: the first tells how King Arthur celebrates Christmas in his castle, surrounded by the Knights of the Round Table. The feast is interrupted by the appearance of the Green Knight on horseback in the hall, who begins to mock and insult those gathered. Arthur, in anger, wants to cut off the head of the offender, but Gawain asks to leave this matter to him and with one swing of his sword cuts off the Green Knight's head, but the stranger takes the head in his hands, sits in the saddle, and then the eyelids open, and a voice commands Gawain to appear in a year and one day to the Green Chapel to retaliate.
True to his word, Sir Gawain, in the second part of the poem, goes in search of the Green Chapel. His path is full of hardships and trials, but the brave knight emerges from all duels and battles with honor. He gets to the castle, where the hospitable host invites him to spend the night, for the Green Chapel is nearby.
The third part is devoted to the trials and temptations that the noble Gawain is subjected to by the wife of the owner of the castle, who is left alone with him, for the glorious owner goes hunting. Gawain passes all the tests with honor, but accepts a green belt from the lady, which can protect him from death. Thus Gawain succumbs to the fear of death.
The denouement comes in the fourth part. Gawain goes to the Green Chapel, where he is met by the Green Knight, who swings his sword three times, but only slightly wounds Gawain, and then forgives him. The green knight turns out to be the owner of the castle, who decided to test Gawain both in battle and in life, seducing him with the charms of his wife. Gawain pleads guilty to cowardice and being afraid of death, and the Green Knight forgives him, reveals his name and says that the culprit was the fairy Morgana, the student of the wise Merlin and the half-sister of King Arthur, who wanted to scare Arthur's wife, Queen Guinevere. . (The prototype of the image of Morgana is considered to be the Irish goddess of war and death Morrigan, who takes the form of a crow, and the Breton fairy of the rivers Morgan.)
The main conflict of the poem is based on Sir Gawain's violation of his word and unauthorized deviation from the code of honor, which is interpreted as behavior unworthy of a knight.

A great many novels have been created in English based on the legends of King Arthur, among them “Arthur”, “Arthur and Merlin”, “Lancelot of the Lake”.
They tell the story of King Arthur - how in infancy, after the death of his parents, he was carried away from the palace by the wizard Merlin, since his life was in danger, and how he managed to climb the path only by obtaining a magic sword with the help of all the same Merlin. Another legend says that Arthur had another wonderful sword, which was given to him by the Maiden of the Lake and the name of that sword was Excalibur. Arthur builds himself a palace in Carlson, in which the famous Round Table is located, at which the glorious Knights of King Arthur sit.
Arthurian researchers have repeatedly made attempts to identify Camelot with real geographical locations. It was placed in Cornwall, Wales and Somersetshire, and Thomas Malory writes more than once that Camelot is Winchester, which was the capital of Britain before the Norman Conquest.

In absolutely all retellings of the legends about Arthur, the name of Merlin is always mentioned next to his name. Merlin is the image of a sorcerer and soothsayer, known to almost all the peoples of Europe, especially after the writing of “The Prophecies of Merlin” by Geoffrey of Monmouth. The famous Stonehenge is associated with the image of the famous Merlin, which in Welsh is called "The Work of Emrys", and the Emryswelian name of Merlin.
The famous English scholar Joey Rees, in a lecture in 1886, said: “I have come to the conclusion that we should accept the story of Geoffrey of Monmouth, according to which Stonehenge was created by Merlin Emrys at the command of another Emrys, which, I believe, means that the temple was dedicated to the Celtic Zeus, whose legendary personality we later find in Merlin." It only remains to add that one of the Celtic triads says that before the advent of people, Britain was called Merlin's Lot.

All legends have a fairytale element, and the plots of the novels are woven into religious and mystical motifs about the Holy Grail, a crystal cup in which, according to legend, Joseph of Arimathea collected the blood of the crucified Jesus and brought it to the monastery in Glastonbury. The Grail is kept in an invisible castle and appears only to the worthy of the worthy, for it is a symbol of moral perfection. The Grail brings eternal youth, happiness, quenches hunger and thirst.
In "Parzival" by Wolfram von Eschenbach (late 12th - early 13th centuries), the Temple of the Holy Grail stands on an onyx mountain, its walls are made of emerald, and its towers are crowned with flaming rubies. The vaults sparkle with sapphires, carbuncles and emeralds.

It is Glastonbury that is identified in the legends of King Arthur with the wonderful island of Avalon - the Isle of Apples, the earthly paradise - where the goat Arthur was transported and where he remains to this day - living in an underground grotto or reincarnated as a raven - waiting for the time to come for his return to Britain and liberate it from its enslavers.
Glastonbury actually existed near Bath (Somersetshire) near the Welsh border, and was abolished only in 1539 by the English Reformation. In 1190-1191, the tomb of the king, Arthur, was discovered on the territory of the abbey, which brought great benefits to both the monastery and the ruling Norman royal dynasty, because it eliminated the danger of the “coming” of the resurrected King Arthur. This is how the find is described by the chronicler Giraldus of Cambria:

“Nowadays people still remember the famous King Arthur of the Britons, whose memory has not faded, for it is closely connected with the history of the famous Glastonbury Abbey, whose king was at one time a reliable patron, protector and generous benefactor... All sorts of tales are told about King Arthur, as if his body was carried away by certain spirits to some fantastic land, although death did not touch him.So, the body of the king, after the appearance of absolutely miraculous signs, was discovered in our days at Glastonbury between two stone pyramids, erected in a cemetery from time immemorial. The body was found deep in the ground, in a hollowed out oak trunk. It was transferred with honors to the church and reverently placed in a marble sarcophagus. A tin cross was also found, placed, according to custom, with the inscription down under the stone... There were many indications that the king rests here. Some of these instructions were contained in manuscripts preserved in the monastery, others - in inscriptions on stone pyramids, worn out by time, others - in miraculous visions and omens, which some pious laymen and clergy were honored with. But the main role in this matter was played by the King of England, Henry II, who heard one ancient legend from the performer of British historical songs. It was Henry who gave the monks such instructions that deep underground, at a depth of at least sixteen feet, they would find a body, and not in a stone tomb, but in a hollowed-out oak trunk. And the body turned out to be lying right there, buried just at such a depth that it could not be found by the Saxons, who captured the island after the death of Arthur, who during his lifetime fought with them so successfully that he destroyed almost all of them. And the truthful inscription about this, carved on the cross, was also covered with a stone so that what it narrated would not accidentally be revealed ahead of schedule, for it should have been revealed only at the right moment" (quoted from the article by A.D. Mikhailov" The Book of Geoffrey of Monmouth and Its Fate").

There is no doubt that the motif of the Grail arose in Arthurian art only in connection with the adoption of Christianity. The basis of the legends about Arthur is purely pagan. In later versions of the novels, the Grail becomes a kind of emblem of the highest perfection and the personification of the highest knightly principle, but its connection with Celtic mythology, where there was a vessel of abundance and immortality, often placed in a sacred place, is also undoubted. Gradually, the Grail motif comes to the fore and becomes dominant.
The plot of the establishment of the Round Table is connected with the emergence of knightly orders in the 12th century, on the one hand, and on the other, it is rooted in the heroic age. According to Layamon, the Round Table was created as a result of a bloody feud that arose over food during meals:

“The nobles from the high families began to serve food to those sitting at the tables; and the first to bring it to the noble knights, after them to the soldiers, and after those to the pages and squires. And passions flared up, and a quarrel ensued; at first they threw bread at each other, and when the bread ended, then with silver bowls full of wine, and then the fists began to walk around the necks. And there was a great fight; everyone struck his neighbor, and a lot of blood was shed, and anger seized the people."

The idea of the Round Table essentially embodied the tradition of personal devotion of a vassal to his overlord, coming from the heroic age, which feudalism inherited from the past... It also embodied one of the contradictions of feudal society - the king was constantly faced with the problem of how to find a way to reward his warriors and thereby preserving their loyalty, without turning them into feudal lords, whose possessions would instill in them the illusion of independence and dictate interests that diverged from his own... The Round Table was in the ideal sense (as in the real sense - the knightly orders) an attempt to resolve this a contradiction, but it remained pure fiction, since the material basis for the existence of Arthur’s squad is not described anywhere and remains uncertain.
In other words, the Round Table, in addition to its magical qualities, was also famous for the fact that it eliminated all disputes over places - at this table everyone was equal.

In the Romance of Brutus by the Norman poet Bas, the establishment of the Round Table is described as follows:

"Arthur established the military order of the Round Table... All knights were equal to each other, regardless of their position at court or their title. They were all served at the table in exactly the same way. None of them could boast of being ranked table is a better place than its neighbor.
Between them there is neither first nor last. There was not a Scotsman, nor a Breton, nor a Frenchman, nor a Norman, nor an Angevin, nor a Fleming, nor a Burgundian, nor a Lorraine, nor a single knight, no matter where he came from - from the West or from the East, who did not consider it his duty to visit at the court of King Arthur. Knights came here from all countries, seeking glory for themselves. They came here both to determine the degree of their courtliness and to see the kingdom of Arthur, meet its barons and receive rich gifts. Poor people loved Arthur, rich people gave him great honor; foreign kings envied him and feared him: they were afraid that he would conquer, perhaps, the whole world and deprive them of their royal dignity" (translation by K. Ivanov).

In 1485, the novel “The Death of Arthur” by Thomas Malory (1410-1471), the only truly major prose writer in England in the 15th century, was published. All we know for sure about Sir Thomas himself is that he was of noble birth, knew French, and wrote his work in 1469-1470.
Historians know a certain Thomas Malory, a criminal who was repeatedly tried and imprisoned. True, in the hands of historians there is only incriminating, conclusive, but unrealistic evidence of guilt.
The book's publisher, Caxton, prepared the manuscript for publication, dividing it into twenty-one books and 507 chapters, providing them with headings. Le Morte d'Arthur is the most complete retelling of the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in existence - a collection of heroic and fairy-tale stories.
As a result of the complexity of the construction and the great variety of plots, Malory turned out to be a kind of Arthurian encyclopedia, in which Arthur himself and his queen are not always in the foreground.

Academician V. M. Zhirmunsky wrote the following about Malory’s work:

"Le Morte d'Arthur" by Thomas Malory is a classic work of world literature, which can be placed next to Homer's "Iliad", "Nibelwigs", the ancient Indian "Mahabharata", etc. Like these works, it is a reflection and completion of a great era of world culture and literature - the knightly Middle Ages, not only English, but also Western European as a whole."

However, it should be noted here that Caxton’s edition is not entirely “correct,” because the impression it creates of the integrity of Le Morte d’Arthur is deceptive. The thing is that Malory wrote eight separate stories, independent books, based on different sources - both English and French. In all likelihood, as researchers note, he never intended to publish all his works together.

Malory's cycle of legends about Arthur also includes a novel about Tristan (or Tristram) and Isolde. The famous story of Tristram, Isolde and King Mark itself arose from Welsh folklore, modeled on Irish love myths.
The legend of Tristan and Isolde expresses the “miracle of individual love” (E.M. Meletinsky), as a result of which an abyss opens up between the individual experiences of the heroes and social norms of behavior, as a result of which lovers remain on one edge, and society on the other, in which they live. Love in this legend acts as a fatal passion, Fate, a force that cannot be resisted, but which itself is contrary to the social order, because it is the source of social chaos.

The famous French writer Denis de Rougemont associated the legend with the Cathar heresy and believed that the relationship of Tristan and Isolde was a glorification of sensual love, directly opposed to the Christian institution of marriage and its morality.
Note that Malory gives a completely different version of Tristan’s death than the one known to the Russian reader from the novel by J. Bedier and which we adhered to in this edition. In his presentation it sounds as follows: the insidious King Mark “with a blow of a sharp spear killed the noble knight Sir Tristram, when he sat and played the harp at the feet of his lady and mistress Isolde the Fair... The fair Isolde died, falling unconscious on the corpse of sir Tristram, and this is also very unfortunate."

One of the most interesting characters in Le Morte d'Arthur is the virtuous Sir Lancelot of the Lake, whose only sin is his love for his overlord's wife, Queen Guinevere. It was because of this sinful love of his that Lancelot could not become the Guardian of the Grail, but only saw the Holy Chalice from afar.
Lancelot is the personification of everything new, his loyalty is a completely new type of loyalty to his overlord, but he is forced to choose Love, for She is a purely personal and beautiful feeling, more beautiful than loyalty to Arthur.
Opposing Lancelot is Gawain, representing the old world, the world of tribal relations and values of the past era. His deepest feelings are feelings of blood kinship and loyalty to his family, for he is Arthur’s kinsman. Researchers point out that Gawain has a history almost as ancient and glorious as King Arthur. His name is etymologically connected with the “solar” hero of primitive magical culture, namely with the image of Guri the Golden-haired.
Characteristic in the Arthurian legends is also the motif of the worship of water, stone and sacred trees, which goes back to the widespread religious cult of the ancient Celts. So, for example, Lancelot spends his childhood and is brought up in the underwater castle of the Maiden of the Lake, it is from the lake that the magic sword of King Arthur Excalibur emerges, and then it is to the lake that returns.

Malory's book was and remains, to this day, extremely popular in England.
Malory's real discovery occurred during the times of romanticism, largely thanks to the two-volume edition of Le Morte d'Arthur published by the famous poet Robert Southey.
Interest in Malory's work was revived during the period of fascination with the Middle Ages in the mid-19th century during the Victorian era, when even the so-called “Arthurian Renaissance” was observed.

In the 40-50s, Alfred Tennyson used the book to create his series of “Royal Idylls”. Malory was helped to discover the Pre-Raphaelite artists by the poet, prose writer and talented artist, enthusiastic singer of the Middle Ages William Morris (1834-1896), who collected almost all the old editions of Arthurian novels in his personal library.
Morris, together with his friends, founded a knightly order, whose patron was considered the knight Galahad, the purest and noblest of all the knights of the Round Table. In 1857, Morris, along with Burne-Jones and Swinbury, decorated the Union Club with their murals of scenes from Le Morte d'Arthur. Morris penned the wonderful poem “The Defense of Guinevere,” and Swinbury wrote “Tristram of Laiopes” and “The Tale of Belen” on Arthurian themes.

The popularity of Le Morte d'Arthur prompted Mark Twain to come up with the idea for the famous parody novel A Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and T. White's book The Once King and the Future King, a modern reworking of the legends of the Knights of the Round Table, became a bestseller in the United States in 1958. .

Romance. The conventional title was supposed to indicate that this is a story in a Romance language. Both lyrics and novels were written not in Latin, but in Romance languages.

The main character is a knight errant. The prototypes are single-shield knights. When going on a crusade, the knight pawned and sold all his property, and most often returned to his homeland impoverished. They became robbers. There was another way for such knights - they were hired into the city guard. In the Middle Ages, the practice of primogeniture developed - the inheritance is not divided, everything goes to the eldest. The younger sons either became monks or became knights with one shield.

The sources of the story are legends and traditions gleaned from the east, which came into contact with Celtic legends. A cycle of legends about King Arthur. Romances of chivalry are bizarre - unbridled fantasy, and at the same time a detailed description of the life of the British Isles. The third source is antiquity, Virgil and Ovid.

There are three types of chivalric romances: ancient, Breton and oriental (idyllic). The earliest is ancient, influenced by Virgil, Ovid and Alexander the Great. One of the first chivalric novels is a novel about Alexander. This is not quite a romance of chivalry. A chivalric romance must have a knight. Feats in the name of a beautiful lady. Alexander the Great gave material about education, horses, battles, but the lady was not there. From Virgil they took the Dido-Aeneas-Lavinius triangle. The authors changed the plot: Dido’s love was uncourtly, so Aeneas abandoned her, but Lavinia is a beautiful lady - Virgil has almost no information about her, so the authors drew her to their liking.

Oriental is no longer quite a novel. He is monotonous, but he was loved. The plot is always the same: the action takes place either in the east or in Europe. After a battle, an Eastern knight finds a Christian child on the battlefield, he takes him and raises him. The son of an eastern knight wants to marry this Christian woman, so they are trying to melt her into a harem. The boy looks for her and dresses up as a woman. It all ends with a wedding. In the European version, it is sold to the Vikings. "Floir and Blanchefleur", "Aucassin and Nicollet".

The main area where chivalric romances appeared was the north of France and the possessions of the English Plantagenets. This is a Breton chivalric romance. It is divided into 4 groups: 1) Breton lays; 2) Arthurian novels, novels about the knights of the round table; 3) novels about the Holy Grail; 4) apart - novels about Tristan and Isolde.

Lay - a collection of 1175 by the Anglo-Norman poetess Narly of France has been preserved. 12 le. Le is a poetic short story of love and adventure with a tragic ending. The ending is always tragic. Le "Mountain of Two Lovers". The king gives his daughter in marriage to someone who will lift her in his arms without stopping to the top of a high mountain. One knight informs her, but dies at the very top, she dies of grief for him.

Arthurian Romances - French author Chretien de Troyes is considered the creator of the classic chivalric romance. Lived at the court of Maria Champagne. A type of small adventurous single-character, single-event lyrical poetic knightly novel. The author's interest in acute psychological conflicts. The concept of courtly love, controversy with the creators of novels about Tristan and Isolde. Chretien de Troyes even writes Anti Tristan and Isolde. The novels are dedicated to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Arthur is a real historical person. Disputes about its origin. The Celts are conquered by the Germanic tribes of the Angles and Saxons. The Celts were first pushed back, and then, rallying around the leader Artorius, they repulsed the Angles and Saxons, although not for long. This is one of the versions - the most probable. A legend arose about the king who fought for independence. The legend is that he did not die, but fell into a deep sleep in the depths of the island of Avalon. These legends gave rise to the theme of the struggle for justice. The round table is the idea of equality of the elite. Each chair at the table has a name. Lack of class dogma. Gradually, the legend of Arthur becomes a utopia, a myth. There is no real Arthur's kingdom. The most famous novels are “The Romance of Lancelot or the Knight of the Cart”, “Even, Knight of the Lion” and “Percival”. The hero is usually chosen by a knight who is still young and capable of development, but already deserved. This is a conflict. It is difficult for such a person to change. Enchanted well, red knight, procession to the castle. Lady Ladina, a cunning servant who, with her cunning, passes off her mistress as Even. Chrétien was interested in the problem of whether chivalric deeds are compatible with chivalrous love and ethics. No. Even is bored, he leaves, accomplishes feats, adventures drive him to madness.

Novels about the Holy Grail. In the French version, this is the cup from which Christ drank at the last supper, and then his blood was collected there. Magic properties. The cup is lost. Legend: when it is found, prosperity will come throughout the world. But the knight is guided by chivalric ethics, and the Grail is a Christian shrine. The problem of the relationship between chivalric ethics and Christian morality. Preference is given to Christian morality. No one can find the Grail except the purest knight. "The Romance of Percival." German version - Wolfram von Eschenbach "Parzival". The Grail is not a cup, but a precious stone with the same properties. So is the cup. Altar stone. Knight Gamoret of Anjou loves exploits - the east, Ethiopia, princess Beloneska, son. He gets bored, leaves for Europe, saves Hertsiloida there, another son. He goes to war and dies. Hercyloida decides to save Parzival from such a fate and goes into the forests. But you can't escape fate. At the age of 15, Parzival sees knights. He leaves with them. Absolute innocence and sinlessness, so he encounters a strange vision: the king is fishing, sad, polite. Everyone in the castle is waiting for something. Procession. But Parzival goes to bed. He wakes up - only an old woman is nearby, who scolds him for not asking one single question, then he would have freed them. He has been searching for the Grail for many years.

on the topic: The originality of English novels of the Arthurian cycle

Introduction

From the time of its inception, the Old English epic was distinguished by great originality, since it absorbed not only the Germanic, but also the Celtic epic and folklore tradition.

The image of King Arthur united a large cycle of chivalric novels, transforming and changing in different historical eras. Based on the legends about King Arthur, the novels “Arthur”, “Arthur and Merlin”, “Lancelot of the Lake” and others were created. Legends about his exploits were popular not only in knighthood, but also among the people. There was a belief that King Arthur would rise from the tomb and return to earth. The plots of many French and English novels are connected with the legends about King Arthur and his knights. Along with the knights, the wizard Merlin and the fairy Morgana act. The fairytale element makes the story particularly entertaining.

Let us consider in this work the originality of the English novels of the Arthurian cycle.

1. English literature of the early Middle Ages<#"justify">. Prerequisites for the formation of myths about Arthur

It would be erroneous to say that Celtic legends are the direct source of the legends about the Round Table of King Arthur, but they lie at the basis of these legends, and, probably, as A.D. Mikhailov notes, “... the Irish sagas are... a parallel, to a certain extent even a model of the legends of King Arthur. There should be no linear genetic series here.” Thus, it is imprudent to see King Ulad Conchobar as a prototype of King Arthur, but his wisdom and justice are similar to the qualities of the King of Armorica, and his court at Emain Macha is reminiscent of Arthur's Camelot. “Truly, all the valiant warriors from among the husbands of Ulad found a place for themselves in the royal house during drinking parties, and yet there was no crowding. Brilliant, stately, beautiful were the valiant warriors, the people of Ulad, who gathered in this house. Many great meetings of all kinds and wonderful entertainment took place there. There were games, music and singing, heroes showed feats of dexterity, poets sang their songs, harpists and musicians played various instruments.”

In the legends about King Arthur we find echoes of Celtic myths. As A.D. Mikhailov notes: “At the same time, the multi-layered nature of myths can hardly be taken into account with sufficient accuracy. Let us add that the tales about Arthur recorded in Welsh texts are of secondary origin,<...>there are quite a few Irish elements in them. In the Celtic mythological system there is more than one layer. This system developed in constant interaction and collision with the rudiments of the mythology of the Picts (who gave world culture the prototype of Tristan) and with the tales of neighboring peoples (in particular, obviously, the Scandinavians, who had long raided the British Isles).” In addition to the multi-layered cultural traditions that influenced the formation of legends about the Round Table of King Arthur, Christianity was a very effective factor in their development. The British Isles, especially Ireland, became Christianized very early and very peacefully. The Celtic pagan culture was not destroyed, but enriched the Christian one, which, in turn, brought with it the traditions of Greek and Roman literature, and they found solid ground here. It was precisely thanks to the folk beliefs that were not supplanted by Christianity, but that adapted to it, that Arthurian legends turned out to be so saturated with motifs of the supernatural, miraculous, and fantastic. Thus, the characteristic features of the Celtic worldview were even strengthened in some ways thanks to the transformations caused by Christianity.

Some researchers also find echoes of Celtic legends in the story of how Arthur, the son of Uther and Igerna, was born. Thus, X. Adolf writes in his essay “The Concept of Reflection of Original Sin in Arthur’s Knightly Romance”: “We do not know what Uther is - a misreading of the name, a man or God; We don’t know what exactly Igerna allegedly did; whether this simple “war chief” belonged to the ruling family, was he a new Hercules, was he descended from a Celtic God.”

Welsh by birth, he is endowed with such primitive and crude features that the Anglo-Normans find it difficult to accept.

Let us consider the first written origins of the formation of Arthuriana. Nennius's reference to Arthur, dating from 858, which speaks of the famous British commander (dux bellonan), who won twelve victories over the Anglo-Saxons and Picts, can hardly be considered mythological. Let us note, however, that some researchers consider it as an indication of the legend of Arthur, which by this time had already firmly won the sympathy of people. So, for example, M.P. Alekseev argues this by saying that “Gildas (6th century) does not yet say anything about Arthur, although he talks in detail about the struggle of the Celts against the Anglo-Saxon conquerors; Anglo-Saxon sources, for example, Bede and the chronicles, do not report anything about him.” So, let's see where the literary versions of the Arthurian cycle originate.

For a long time, legends about Arthur existed only in oral folk art, and Latin sources report only the popularity of Arthurian legends in the Celtic environment (William of Malmesbury, who wrote at the beginning of the 12th century, not without condemnation, noted the extraordinary spread among the population of legends about Arthur, which people “rave about until Today"). These sources, as E. Faral believed, served as the starting point for Geoffrey of Monmouth, his “History of the Britons,” which appeared about ten years after the works of William of Malmesbury, since it was in this book that Arthur was first depicted in full size as a world-conquering monarch, surrounded by an exquisite court and the bravest knights.

Geoffrey lived on the Welsh border, his immediate patrons were the Marcher barons, who established new forms of feudal power in this area. His History was dedicated to the most powerful of them, Earl Robert of Gloucester, and, for political insurance, to his enemy Stephen of Blois. There is no doubt that Geoffrey had good opportunity to become acquainted with the traditions of Wales. He even claimed to have in his possession “one very ancient book in the language of the Britons,” although no trace of such a book or anything similar survived. In any case, she could only give him scant material. It is also possible that he knew some of the legends, later completely forgotten, that circulated in Cornwall and Brittany.

In "The History of the Britons" the whole life of the hero passes before the reader. The greatest attention is paid to his numerous victorious campaigns, to how he diligently and wisely “gathers lands” and creates a vast and powerful empire. And this empire perishes not because of the luck or courage of its enemies, but because of human gullibility, on the one hand, and treachery, on the other.” Along with Arthur's military achievements, Geoffrey tells us about the main features of his character, thereby laying the foundation for the myth of the “fairest of kings”: “The youth Arthur was fifteen years old, and he was distinguished by unheard-of valor and the same generosity. His innate benevolence was so endearing to him that there was almost no one who did not love him. So, crowned with the royal crown and observing the ancient custom, he began to shower the people with his bounty.”

. Classic Arthuriana

The medieval Christian worldview seemed to remove real contradictions, transferring them to a higher level of comprehensive supra-world categories.

In the middle of the 14th century, the anonymous English novel Sir Gawain and the Green Knight appeared. B. Grebanier characterizes it as follows: “Of all the poetic novels, not one can compare in beauty with the novel by an anonymous author of the mid-14th century, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, one of the most exquisite works among those that have come down to us from medieval literature. It is also an allegory, the purpose of which is to set an example of chastity, courage and honor - the qualities inherent in a perfect knight." As a fairly late work, the novel is allegorical through and through, “Ode “glorifies Christian virtues in complex allegories and in this merges with the typical genre of the era - the didactic allegorical poem, which arose entirely on urban soil.” middle ages english king arthur

The Normanized Arthur and his court were a model of chivalry. Let's consider what features were associated with the ideal of a knight.

A knight must have professional skills: control a horse, wield a weapon, etc.

Almost every work of the Arthurian cycle features some kind of castle - enchanted, impregnable, or one that a lovely lady promises with her hand and heart to the knight after he completes his task.

To understand why such an important role in chivalric romances is often given to castles and those who inhabit them, let us dwell in more detail on a number of historical facts.

Conclusion

Bibliography

1. Shkunaev S.V. Traditions and myths of medieval Ireland. -M., 1991. - P. 13.

2.In the world of myths and legends. - St. Petersburg, 1995. - P. 272.

Mikhailov AD. Arthurian legends and their evolution // Malory T. The Death of Arthur. - M., 1974. - P. 799.

Icelandic sagas. Irish epic. - M., 1973. - P. 587.

Samarin R.M., Mikhailov A.D. Knightly novel // History of world literature. - M., 1984. - T. 2. - P. 570.

Geoffrey of Monmouth. History of the Britons. The Life of Merlin - M., 1984.

Culturology. Theory and history of culture. - M., 1996. - P. 146.

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