More on English Nationalism, Malory and Caxton
It’s been said that the idea of vernacular epic was first formalized by literary historians and philologists (i.e. early linguists and folklorists) in the nineteenth century, which is also traditionally the era of the rise of modern nationalism. This connection is not accidental, “epic” literature like the Chanson de Roland, and even Beowulf (which has been seen variously as Danish, German, and English) were first studied by nineteenth century scholars and editors as evidence of “national” identity (and military heroism) expressed through earlier forms of “national” languages. And when no “national” epic exists, they have to be invented, as in the 18th century example of the fraudulent works of “Ossian” – something of a literary fraud meant to buttress claims of Scots-Gaelic nationalism. Before the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, these early vernacular texts were not studied at all, except as curiosities, and they were owned and collected by bibliophiles, not read as literature.
I think perhaps we can see the shared (though separate) projects of Malory and Caxton (as Malory’s editor and ideological interpreter) as something similar, though much earlier than these examples. It’s difficult to ascribe clear motives to Malory’s project, though one suspects that he must have shared Caxton’s proto-nationalistic feelings: the English deserve a vernacular “epic” (even if it is prose) that proves their ancient lineage and co-equality with the matters of Rome, and France. All of this of course, neatly elides the problem of Arthur’s British identity in Geoffrey of Monmouth, who defeated the Saxons, and sidesteps the connections between the British of Arthur’s time and the Breton French. Such inconvenient truths have little impact on national literatures.
Agravaine wrote:
Perhaps hubhg will be more helpful with historical context than shapedal.com was with the midterm review. Somehow I suspect not.
I’d like to play history major and add a few minor factoids to our consideration of Caxton’s historical context.
Concerning the delay between when Malory wrote the work and when Caxton printed it: I think that’s easily explained by the fact Malory had supported the losers of the War of the Roses (the Lancastrians). Thus a little bit of time to let that cool and the work stand more on its own rather than with the immediate association of Malory would seem advisable.
Moreover, there would have been a strong incentive to produce a work unifying England after the War of the Roses. Not only had it divided England between the two factions, but it ultimately proved meaningless. The Lancastrians lost, but there were no Yorkists to take the throne. The title thus passed to an obscure part of the family: the Tudors. Not only were they a new dynasty, but they weren’t English.
They were Welsh. Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch, made an effort to legitimate his reign primarily by good governance: he assigned Archbishop John Morton to improve the taxing and bureaucratic systems of the realm. Moreover, he, like the Angevin patronage of Geoffrey (via Robert of Gloucester) encouraged the proliferation of Arthurian mythology and iconography to legitimate his Welshness. He named his heir apparent and favoured son Arthur (Henry VIII was actually not trained as a monarch, but instead was left to basically enjoy himself as a youth. The death of his elder brother Arthur thus was considered a rather traumatic event in term of succession.)
Malory also breaks the tradition of English praise of Gawaine, which I would also attribute to historical events. Edward I’s invasion of Scotland had converted the two peoples into bitter foes in a sort of perpetual war, and thus it seems Gawaine’s Celtic origins ceased to be exotic and instead became borderline treasonous. Thus, Gawaine ceased to be the champion of Albion in Malory.
Posted 02 Nov 2007 at 1:13 pm ¶