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icarusI've been hearing all over the Merlin fandom how Merlin tramples the Arthurian legend into dust -- "but we don't care! We love it anyway!"
Well. Ahem. I just finished my Arthurian Lit class.
I'd like to call into question first the idea that there's "one" Arthurian legend. Second, certainly the BBC's Merlin tramples Malory's popular Morte d'Arthur, yes, but it returns to a10th 1100s, i.e., the 12th century (Sigh. I do this all the time with dates.) Arthurian text, Geoffrey of Monmouth, where Uther raises Arthur, and then runs from there. The BBC's writers show a familiarity with a breadth of Arthurian texts as they remake the legend.
If you're going to depart from the legend, you'd better know what you're doing. And they do.
The Cliff's Notes version:
Negotiating the Boundaries of Legend
Every storyteller runs into a snag when they attempt to retell a well-known legend: the reader already knows the ending. Narrative tension is lost. For Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, and La3aman this posed no difficulty. Familiarity helped create plausibility for their histories and translations of histories. Storytellers like Marie de France, Chretien, and the Gawaine poet avoid the problem by setting their narratives in Arthur's court, drawing in the reader, while focusing on Gawaine or Yvain or Erec as the hero. The reader can genuinely fear for Gawaine's life in Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight as the ax descends since he is not the once and future king (Gawaine 2260). Most modern interpretations rely on the popularity of the name "King Arthur" combined with a fuzzy familiarity with the legend. The 1981 film Excalibur returns to Malory's grotesquerie to shock viewers who vaguely expect chivalry of the round table. T. H. White adds an entire book on the youth of the orphaned Arthur, fills it with modern concerns, before returning to the legend. Likewise Bradley's The Mists of Avalon shifts to a woman's perspective for a modern feminist view, while also following Malory's accepted plot.
The BBC's new series Merlin takes a whimsical new tack: the writers cut the legs out from under the legend altogether so the audience no longer knows where they stand.
Within the first episode, Merlin is the same age as Arthur, Uther is alive during Prince Arthur's youth, Guinevere is a blacksmith's daughter and servant to Morgana—who is not Arthur's sister at all but Uther Pendragon's ward. Who knows? Perhaps Arthur won't even become king. Through such radical changes, five key touchstones of Malory's Morte d' Arthur, 1) kingship through drawing the sword from the stone, 2) Arthur establishing the round table, 3) marrying Guinevere and being cuckolded with Lancelot, 4) the treason of Mordred, and 5) Arthur's departure for Avalon, are undermined within a few episodes. Even if all five still occur, the story must unfold differently. Far from ignoring the popular Malory version, the writers count on its familiarity, toying with audience expectations. Essential foreshadowing in the series—such as the unexpected identity of Mordred as a druid whose people have been executed by Uther—couldn't be as effective if the viewer didn't know the original plot.
Have you ever blown a bubble within another soap bubble? It is a delicate task to build a story within another story, touching at certain junctures while ignoring others. Ignore too many and the believability for the audience will collapse. Keep too many, and the new story will be absorbed into the old. The tension between the two stories will be lost. More than just a new narrative, an additional subtle layer of tension between the old and the new story is created. This tension develops from expectations fulfilled, deviated from, and unfulfilled.
It is this tension between a master narrative and a sub narrative that marks the difference between a simple singular story (or novel), and an epic. Epics are not one story, although one version might take hold of the popular imagination: epics are a multiplicity. As the many variations of Arthur's legend attest, such master narrative-subnarrative tension is by no means new. Tolkien called it the "web of story," not a surprising perspective from a student of epics.
Thus the myriad versions of Arthurian myth are only deviations from an original if viewed (inappropriately) with the novelist's eye, seeking one Writer (or perhaps, Writer) for one Definitive Text (Definitive Text). These settle like a happy snowflake on Malory as the Definitive Text by virtue of his popularity, or perhaps skip back to Geoffrey of Monmouth as the Original Writer, missing the point of epics altogether. Does one imagine that Arthurian storytellers repeated their tales by rote, only altering them through faulty memory and happenstance? The very fact that variation continues to breed demonstrates the legend of King Arthur is still a living epic.
Whether the listeners, readers, or viewers accept the new variation, however, is a matter of skill. Marie de France's technique of exploring new narratives within Arthur's court is far less dangerous than breaking with the original plot. By departing from the story, the Merlin series first must find new touchstones to tie it to Arthurian myth for it to ring true.
Ringing True
The BBC's Merlin situates itself in Arthurian canon by returning to Geoffrey of Monmouth's version. In Geoffrey, Arthur is raised by Uther until age fifteen (Monmouth 208, 212). This narrative strategy opens fertile new ground (since Geoffrey tells us nothing of Arthur's childhood), wipes the slate clean of Malory's orphaned Arthur (Malory 13), while reminding purists of drastic differences between existing canonical texts. Checkmate. Merlin consciously signals its source by placing Geoffrey as a character, an historian, within the series.
Geoffrey's themes furthermore flavor and underpin Merlin. Prophesy and destiny is the overarching theme, quite unlike Arthur's deserved fall as written by the fallen knight, Malory, or the theme of courtly love found in Marie de France. The dragon under Vortigern's castle (Uther's castle in Merlin) is still the source of prophesy, but rather than a portent read by the boy Merlin (Monmouth 171), Geoffrey's version is inverted, and a dragon gives prophecies to the boy Merlin. Geoffrey's repeated concern for the people (particularly the Britons) permeates the new series, leaving behind Chretien and Malory's fixation on knights and aventure. In texts like Chretien's, the peasants only appear as "rough common folk," a "mob" that is forced to retreat by a count's switch (Chretien, Erec 11). The series rings true to the populist spirit of Geoffrey while lending a new flavor for those used to Malory's knights errant.
Multivalent details from a variety of Arthurian sources then knit the series into the myth. Some are lifted directly, others mixed and rewritten. A poisoned well in the second episode is right out of Geoffrey, where a poisoned well kills Uther (Monmouth 211). In Merlin, the faeries of La3man (La3man 247) who bestow tecosca (blessings) and gessi (curses), abide in Avalon, where they can bestow immortality, for a price. Their attempted ritual sacrifice of Arthur reformulates the attempted sacrifice of Merlin in Geoffrey (Monmouth 167) and the Historia Brittonum (Historia Brittonum 30). A poisoned silver chalice from Malory that nearly kills the young Tristan makes an appearance in episode three, where it nearly kills the young Arthur. In Geoffrey, an assassin disguised as a physician kills Aurelius (Monmouth 200), while in the sixth episode of Merlin, a dangerous sorcerer, Myrddin (the name itself a reference to Welsh versions of Merlin) disguised as a physician attempts to kill Uther. Throughout the series, Merlin himself hides as an assistant to the court physician who is also a former sorcerer. Merlin's writers toy with the audience's knowledge that Uther dies young, dangling possible deaths by poison and by sorcery, then drawing him back from the brink.
Borrowed details are not enough to create a convincing Arthurian atmosphere, as they could easily seem superficial, a "triteness" of appropriation tacked on like glitter (Tolkien 58). Merlin helps convince the reader by borrowing details with attention to their original context.
Broader patterns in medieval legend, such as the three tests of a warrior's mettle, appear in Merlin's eleventh episode. Arthur is tested three times for knightly virtues such as generosity, mercy, and self-sacrifice. He fails the test of humility and nearly fails the quest. In episode nine the knight Tristan, who appears in Malory if not Geoffrey, is brought back from the dead. He rides into the castle to challenge Uther's knights -- much as the Green Knight does in Sir Gawaine and the Green Night. Like the Green Knight, he cannot be killed (Gawaine 444).
Both the undead Tristan in Merlin and the magical Green Knight in Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight represent penance for past mistakes and failings (Gawaine 2392). Gawaine must pay for his overconfidence in dealing the deadly blow to the Green Knight and for cheating to save his own life. Teasing out one element, the knight in Merlin who accepts the challenge is overconfident. But the deeper ethical context of Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight regarding the relationship between honor and pragmatism – can a knight be chivalrous when he greedily protects his own life at cost to his principles? (Gawaine 2374) – also appear in the Merlin episode. Uther must pay for having killed his brother-in-law Tristan although Tristan challenged him, blaming Uther for the death of his sister Ygerna. Uther's victory is bitter and unjust, because ultimately his selfish desire for a son was responsible for his wife's death. But is Uther responsible for either death? Arguing for Gawaine-esque pragmatism, Uther insists he was forced to fight Tristan or else die himself, and that he did not know the sorcery used to guarantee a son would kill his wife. Yet Uther cheated his fate and like Gawaine, must face the ignoble truth.
The combination of Uther and wrongful sorcery reaches deep into Arthurian myth, reminding the audience of the sorcery that led to Arthur's conception in Geoffrey, Geoffrey's translators, and Malory (Malory 13), when Uther disguised himself as Gorlois, Ygerna's husband, in order to sleep with her (Monmouth 207). Although the story of Arthur's conception is different, Uther and Uther's motivations, his passionate pursuit of his own desires at the expense of others and willingness to dismiss the consequences as necessary pragmatism, remains intact. Unlike Gawaine (Gawaine 2375), Uther blames others for his mistakes and sets out to destroy the very sorcerers who helped him bring about his downfall. By the end of the season Uther is almost universally hated.
To What End?
For a new Arthurian narrative to avoid seeming spurious, it must fill (one might say exploit) a gap in the existing story. Not add something new and out of place but draw out what is suggested already. One might say Wace's round table (Wace 245) was already present in the equality of the nobles of King Arthur's court. Arthur's even-handed generosity is essential to his characterization since Geoffrey (Monmouth 212). The symbol merely needed to be revealed.
Buried in the subtext of Monmouth is a question: how is it that Arthur, raised by Uther Pendragon, is so different from his father? Geoffrey of Monmouth does not account for the radical differences between a man who pursued the wife of his Duke, remorselessly starting a war, and the young man who unites the kingdom. For Geoffrey, and the BBC's dragon in Merlin, it's a matter of Arthur's destiny. For the modern reader, fate is an insufficient explanation. People are not created in the image of Aristotle's pure forms but have some hand in shaping their fate.
Thus the most radical departure of Merlin: the character Merlin himself, who vacillates between fate, personal ethics, and human failings. In no prior variation is Merlin a contemporary of Arthur. In Geoffrey, Merlin gives prophesies to Vortigern, helps Aurelius then Uther, and appears no more. Here the series draws upon Malory's Merlin who remains by Arthur's side throughout his life, while melding him with the boy prodigy Merlin who appears in Geoffrey (Monmouth 167). Yet changes to Merlin make little difference because Merlin everywhere is used as machinae. He fulfills Uther's desires (Monmouth 207), resolves Arthur's heritage (Malory 13), and in Merlin, saves Arthur's life time and again. Yet the BBC's Merlin is young, his magic not yet reliable, and right or wrong, he makes decisions of his own. This characterization strikes a balance between the wild Welsh Myrddin Monmouth drew upon (as referenced by the town of "Kaermerdin," Monmouth 167) and the unearthly prophet of "The Prophecies of Merlin" (Monmouth 171-185) by reimagining Merlin as a boy growing into wisdom.
Navigating Modern Politics
The BBC's boy Merlin negotiates the differences between the modern world and the medieval. Much as Geoffrey in thetenth twelfth century revisualized the fifth century Arthurian culture from tales like Culhwch and Olwen, where Arthur is a chieftain of a large band of warriors (Culhwch and Olwen 34), Merlin bridges tenth twelfth and twenty-first century sensibilities.
Characters are drawn with complexities familiar from the "realism" of the novel. Arthur struggles to balance his own sense of justice with his father's vendetta against sorcery. Merlin takes Geoffrey's plea on behalf of his Britons a step further as a plea for modern democratic equality, emphasizing the gulf between the noble and peasant when Lancelot is not permitted to join Uther's knights due to his peasant birth. Themes of prejudice (against sorcerers and the like) are added to the mix and emphasized by casting a black actress as Guinevere, while a feminist reading is also taken into account when the audience learns that Morgana used to defeat Arthur in weapons practice.
However, the most notably modern element is an elision. Christianity, so central in the Arthurian legend with Malory's rendition of the grail quest and ever-present monks and bishops in Geoffrey, is markedly absent in the BBC series. A bishop isn't even found in the background of Arthur's coronation as heir apparent. It's a perplexing absence until one realizes that the Archibishop of Canterbury would have side with Uther in the prejudiced vendetta against sorcery. This would pit the church against both the protagonist, Merlin, and the hero, Arthur, an awkward and politically fraught position. The current Pope has already decried Harry Potter. Far safer to pit Merlin and Arthur against a beloved but ruthlessly pragmatic king. While an essential flavor of authentic medieval society is sadly missing—a lack more anachronistic than the presence of tomatoes—Merlin has deftly navigated the shoals of a modern interpretation.
Works Cited
Chretien de Troyes. Erec and Enide.
La3amon. Brut.
Malory, Sir Thomas. Le Morte d'Arthur.
Marie de France. The Lais, translated by Robert Hanning and Joan Ferrante, Baker Academic, (c) 1978.
Monmouth, Geoffrey. The History of the Kings of Britain, translated by Lewis Thorpe, Penguin Books, (c) 1966.
Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight, edited and translated by James Winny, Broadview, (c) 1992.
The Romance of Arthur, edited by James J. Wilhelm, Garland Publishing, Inc., (c) 1994.
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Tolkien Reader, Curtis Publishing Co., (c) 1966.
Wace. Le Roman de Brut.
My apologies for not being available for much comment. Of course I write this sort of thing when I'm hopelessly busy. I hope it's not too dry. Also, forgive that I haven't italicized all the text names. I'm in the middle of finals and probably shouldn't be posting this at all.
ETA: Sorry about the dates. I'm forever calling the 1100s the "tenth" century. It's the twelfth, yes, yes it is. (And to think I've a history minor.)
Well. Ahem. I just finished my Arthurian Lit class.
I'd like to call into question first the idea that there's "one" Arthurian legend. Second, certainly the BBC's Merlin tramples Malory's popular Morte d'Arthur, yes, but it returns to a
If you're going to depart from the legend, you'd better know what you're doing. And they do.
The Cliff's Notes version:
- There are lots of versions of Arthur, going back to the 5th century or so.
- Malory is getting flattened here, no doubt. That's the one we know.
- The writers have gone back to an earlier (and historically more influential) version of the legend: Geoffrey of Monmouth,10th1100s, i.e., the 12th century. Sigh. I do this all the time with dates.
- From there they take off from a discrepancy between Malory and Geoffrey: did Uther raise his son or was Arthur orphaned? Malory says orphaned. Geoffrey says Uther raised him till age 15.
- Then they mix together all the gazillions of versions of Arthur in a soup and serve it up every week.
- Why do this? The element of surprise. (And they may be showing off. ;)
Negotiating the Boundaries of Legend
Every storyteller runs into a snag when they attempt to retell a well-known legend: the reader already knows the ending. Narrative tension is lost. For Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, and La3aman this posed no difficulty. Familiarity helped create plausibility for their histories and translations of histories. Storytellers like Marie de France, Chretien, and the Gawaine poet avoid the problem by setting their narratives in Arthur's court, drawing in the reader, while focusing on Gawaine or Yvain or Erec as the hero. The reader can genuinely fear for Gawaine's life in Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight as the ax descends since he is not the once and future king (Gawaine 2260). Most modern interpretations rely on the popularity of the name "King Arthur" combined with a fuzzy familiarity with the legend. The 1981 film Excalibur returns to Malory's grotesquerie to shock viewers who vaguely expect chivalry of the round table. T. H. White adds an entire book on the youth of the orphaned Arthur, fills it with modern concerns, before returning to the legend. Likewise Bradley's The Mists of Avalon shifts to a woman's perspective for a modern feminist view, while also following Malory's accepted plot.
The BBC's new series Merlin takes a whimsical new tack: the writers cut the legs out from under the legend altogether so the audience no longer knows where they stand.
Within the first episode, Merlin is the same age as Arthur, Uther is alive during Prince Arthur's youth, Guinevere is a blacksmith's daughter and servant to Morgana—who is not Arthur's sister at all but Uther Pendragon's ward. Who knows? Perhaps Arthur won't even become king. Through such radical changes, five key touchstones of Malory's Morte d' Arthur, 1) kingship through drawing the sword from the stone, 2) Arthur establishing the round table, 3) marrying Guinevere and being cuckolded with Lancelot, 4) the treason of Mordred, and 5) Arthur's departure for Avalon, are undermined within a few episodes. Even if all five still occur, the story must unfold differently. Far from ignoring the popular Malory version, the writers count on its familiarity, toying with audience expectations. Essential foreshadowing in the series—such as the unexpected identity of Mordred as a druid whose people have been executed by Uther—couldn't be as effective if the viewer didn't know the original plot.
Have you ever blown a bubble within another soap bubble? It is a delicate task to build a story within another story, touching at certain junctures while ignoring others. Ignore too many and the believability for the audience will collapse. Keep too many, and the new story will be absorbed into the old. The tension between the two stories will be lost. More than just a new narrative, an additional subtle layer of tension between the old and the new story is created. This tension develops from expectations fulfilled, deviated from, and unfulfilled.
It is this tension between a master narrative and a sub narrative that marks the difference between a simple singular story (or novel), and an epic. Epics are not one story, although one version might take hold of the popular imagination: epics are a multiplicity. As the many variations of Arthur's legend attest, such master narrative-subnarrative tension is by no means new. Tolkien called it the "web of story," not a surprising perspective from a student of epics.
Thus the myriad versions of Arthurian myth are only deviations from an original if viewed (inappropriately) with the novelist's eye, seeking one Writer (or perhaps, Writer) for one Definitive Text (Definitive Text). These settle like a happy snowflake on Malory as the Definitive Text by virtue of his popularity, or perhaps skip back to Geoffrey of Monmouth as the Original Writer, missing the point of epics altogether. Does one imagine that Arthurian storytellers repeated their tales by rote, only altering them through faulty memory and happenstance? The very fact that variation continues to breed demonstrates the legend of King Arthur is still a living epic.
Whether the listeners, readers, or viewers accept the new variation, however, is a matter of skill. Marie de France's technique of exploring new narratives within Arthur's court is far less dangerous than breaking with the original plot. By departing from the story, the Merlin series first must find new touchstones to tie it to Arthurian myth for it to ring true.
Ringing True
The BBC's Merlin situates itself in Arthurian canon by returning to Geoffrey of Monmouth's version. In Geoffrey, Arthur is raised by Uther until age fifteen (Monmouth 208, 212). This narrative strategy opens fertile new ground (since Geoffrey tells us nothing of Arthur's childhood), wipes the slate clean of Malory's orphaned Arthur (Malory 13), while reminding purists of drastic differences between existing canonical texts. Checkmate. Merlin consciously signals its source by placing Geoffrey as a character, an historian, within the series.
Geoffrey's themes furthermore flavor and underpin Merlin. Prophesy and destiny is the overarching theme, quite unlike Arthur's deserved fall as written by the fallen knight, Malory, or the theme of courtly love found in Marie de France. The dragon under Vortigern's castle (Uther's castle in Merlin) is still the source of prophesy, but rather than a portent read by the boy Merlin (Monmouth 171), Geoffrey's version is inverted, and a dragon gives prophecies to the boy Merlin. Geoffrey's repeated concern for the people (particularly the Britons) permeates the new series, leaving behind Chretien and Malory's fixation on knights and aventure. In texts like Chretien's, the peasants only appear as "rough common folk," a "mob" that is forced to retreat by a count's switch (Chretien, Erec 11). The series rings true to the populist spirit of Geoffrey while lending a new flavor for those used to Malory's knights errant.
Multivalent details from a variety of Arthurian sources then knit the series into the myth. Some are lifted directly, others mixed and rewritten. A poisoned well in the second episode is right out of Geoffrey, where a poisoned well kills Uther (Monmouth 211). In Merlin, the faeries of La3man (La3man 247) who bestow tecosca (blessings) and gessi (curses), abide in Avalon, where they can bestow immortality, for a price. Their attempted ritual sacrifice of Arthur reformulates the attempted sacrifice of Merlin in Geoffrey (Monmouth 167) and the Historia Brittonum (Historia Brittonum 30). A poisoned silver chalice from Malory that nearly kills the young Tristan makes an appearance in episode three, where it nearly kills the young Arthur. In Geoffrey, an assassin disguised as a physician kills Aurelius (Monmouth 200), while in the sixth episode of Merlin, a dangerous sorcerer, Myrddin (the name itself a reference to Welsh versions of Merlin) disguised as a physician attempts to kill Uther. Throughout the series, Merlin himself hides as an assistant to the court physician who is also a former sorcerer. Merlin's writers toy with the audience's knowledge that Uther dies young, dangling possible deaths by poison and by sorcery, then drawing him back from the brink.
Borrowed details are not enough to create a convincing Arthurian atmosphere, as they could easily seem superficial, a "triteness" of appropriation tacked on like glitter (Tolkien 58). Merlin helps convince the reader by borrowing details with attention to their original context.
Broader patterns in medieval legend, such as the three tests of a warrior's mettle, appear in Merlin's eleventh episode. Arthur is tested three times for knightly virtues such as generosity, mercy, and self-sacrifice. He fails the test of humility and nearly fails the quest. In episode nine the knight Tristan, who appears in Malory if not Geoffrey, is brought back from the dead. He rides into the castle to challenge Uther's knights -- much as the Green Knight does in Sir Gawaine and the Green Night. Like the Green Knight, he cannot be killed (Gawaine 444).
Both the undead Tristan in Merlin and the magical Green Knight in Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight represent penance for past mistakes and failings (Gawaine 2392). Gawaine must pay for his overconfidence in dealing the deadly blow to the Green Knight and for cheating to save his own life. Teasing out one element, the knight in Merlin who accepts the challenge is overconfident. But the deeper ethical context of Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight regarding the relationship between honor and pragmatism – can a knight be chivalrous when he greedily protects his own life at cost to his principles? (Gawaine 2374) – also appear in the Merlin episode. Uther must pay for having killed his brother-in-law Tristan although Tristan challenged him, blaming Uther for the death of his sister Ygerna. Uther's victory is bitter and unjust, because ultimately his selfish desire for a son was responsible for his wife's death. But is Uther responsible for either death? Arguing for Gawaine-esque pragmatism, Uther insists he was forced to fight Tristan or else die himself, and that he did not know the sorcery used to guarantee a son would kill his wife. Yet Uther cheated his fate and like Gawaine, must face the ignoble truth.
The combination of Uther and wrongful sorcery reaches deep into Arthurian myth, reminding the audience of the sorcery that led to Arthur's conception in Geoffrey, Geoffrey's translators, and Malory (Malory 13), when Uther disguised himself as Gorlois, Ygerna's husband, in order to sleep with her (Monmouth 207). Although the story of Arthur's conception is different, Uther and Uther's motivations, his passionate pursuit of his own desires at the expense of others and willingness to dismiss the consequences as necessary pragmatism, remains intact. Unlike Gawaine (Gawaine 2375), Uther blames others for his mistakes and sets out to destroy the very sorcerers who helped him bring about his downfall. By the end of the season Uther is almost universally hated.
To What End?
For a new Arthurian narrative to avoid seeming spurious, it must fill (one might say exploit) a gap in the existing story. Not add something new and out of place but draw out what is suggested already. One might say Wace's round table (Wace 245) was already present in the equality of the nobles of King Arthur's court. Arthur's even-handed generosity is essential to his characterization since Geoffrey (Monmouth 212). The symbol merely needed to be revealed.
Buried in the subtext of Monmouth is a question: how is it that Arthur, raised by Uther Pendragon, is so different from his father? Geoffrey of Monmouth does not account for the radical differences between a man who pursued the wife of his Duke, remorselessly starting a war, and the young man who unites the kingdom. For Geoffrey, and the BBC's dragon in Merlin, it's a matter of Arthur's destiny. For the modern reader, fate is an insufficient explanation. People are not created in the image of Aristotle's pure forms but have some hand in shaping their fate.
Thus the most radical departure of Merlin: the character Merlin himself, who vacillates between fate, personal ethics, and human failings. In no prior variation is Merlin a contemporary of Arthur. In Geoffrey, Merlin gives prophesies to Vortigern, helps Aurelius then Uther, and appears no more. Here the series draws upon Malory's Merlin who remains by Arthur's side throughout his life, while melding him with the boy prodigy Merlin who appears in Geoffrey (Monmouth 167). Yet changes to Merlin make little difference because Merlin everywhere is used as machinae. He fulfills Uther's desires (Monmouth 207), resolves Arthur's heritage (Malory 13), and in Merlin, saves Arthur's life time and again. Yet the BBC's Merlin is young, his magic not yet reliable, and right or wrong, he makes decisions of his own. This characterization strikes a balance between the wild Welsh Myrddin Monmouth drew upon (as referenced by the town of "Kaermerdin," Monmouth 167) and the unearthly prophet of "The Prophecies of Merlin" (Monmouth 171-185) by reimagining Merlin as a boy growing into wisdom.
Navigating Modern Politics
The BBC's boy Merlin negotiates the differences between the modern world and the medieval. Much as Geoffrey in the
Characters are drawn with complexities familiar from the "realism" of the novel. Arthur struggles to balance his own sense of justice with his father's vendetta against sorcery. Merlin takes Geoffrey's plea on behalf of his Britons a step further as a plea for modern democratic equality, emphasizing the gulf between the noble and peasant when Lancelot is not permitted to join Uther's knights due to his peasant birth. Themes of prejudice (against sorcerers and the like) are added to the mix and emphasized by casting a black actress as Guinevere, while a feminist reading is also taken into account when the audience learns that Morgana used to defeat Arthur in weapons practice.
However, the most notably modern element is an elision. Christianity, so central in the Arthurian legend with Malory's rendition of the grail quest and ever-present monks and bishops in Geoffrey, is markedly absent in the BBC series. A bishop isn't even found in the background of Arthur's coronation as heir apparent. It's a perplexing absence until one realizes that the Archibishop of Canterbury would have side with Uther in the prejudiced vendetta against sorcery. This would pit the church against both the protagonist, Merlin, and the hero, Arthur, an awkward and politically fraught position. The current Pope has already decried Harry Potter. Far safer to pit Merlin and Arthur against a beloved but ruthlessly pragmatic king. While an essential flavor of authentic medieval society is sadly missing—a lack more anachronistic than the presence of tomatoes—Merlin has deftly navigated the shoals of a modern interpretation.
Works Cited
Chretien de Troyes. Erec and Enide.
La3amon. Brut.
Malory, Sir Thomas. Le Morte d'Arthur.
Marie de France. The Lais, translated by Robert Hanning and Joan Ferrante, Baker Academic, (c) 1978.
Monmouth, Geoffrey. The History of the Kings of Britain, translated by Lewis Thorpe, Penguin Books, (c) 1966.
Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight, edited and translated by James Winny, Broadview, (c) 1992.
The Romance of Arthur, edited by James J. Wilhelm, Garland Publishing, Inc., (c) 1994.
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Tolkien Reader, Curtis Publishing Co., (c) 1966.
Wace. Le Roman de Brut.
My apologies for not being available for much comment. Of course I write this sort of thing when I'm hopelessly busy. I hope it's not too dry. Also, forgive that I haven't italicized all the text names. I'm in the middle of finals and probably shouldn't be posting this at all.
ETA: Sorry about the dates. I'm forever calling the 1100s the "tenth" century. It's the twelfth, yes, yes it is. (And to think I've a history minor.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-12-09 01:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-09 02:12 am (UTC)It was lovely to read this analysis.
It's a bit sad to see the way people fail to recognise that our culture's myths are still growing and changing and instead say that new versions are 'wrong' or 'inaccurate'.
It's been fascinating to watch how, within my lifetime, a new character has arrived in the Robin Hood legend (the Saracen, who started out in 'Robin and Marian').
Of course our versions of myths are anachronistic, but how anyone can be distressed by that when one is talking about such a hodge-podge of periods as the Arthurian stories is beyond me.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-09 04:16 am (UTC)He did? I didn't know that. That's one of the few Robin Hood movies I've never seen. I always thought the Saracen character started with Nasir in 'Robin of Sherwood'.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2008-12-09 04:34 am (UTC)I'm signed up for an Arthurian Lit class next semester as well - I cannot WAIT. :D
no subject
Date: 2008-12-09 05:06 am (UTC)You say that there is logic to not having religion in there (Not to mention Harry Potter is a new story with non Christian magic, whereas Arthur was a Christian king, and the pre christian versions of him are so old - the Pope cannot really express much valid objections without looking a bigger twit than usual), but without it? Without that oh so fine borderline and dialogue between the magical and the religious, I don't have any interest as it is too distorted. Belief is embedded in society and culture in ways that are strange, pagan, mystical, outright heretical and nothing remotely like what is around today - religion is there. This is why I can't watch most shows that are older mythologies rewritten for a modern audience - that and the truly dreadful renditions of costumes and daily life.
I recognise the world in Monmouth and the Anglo Saxon Chronicles, but not in this .. blandness. That of course being the other reason. Two episodes and I decided that I could get just going and reading Monmouth, or Cretien or my own head. What I look for in terms of contributions to the Arthurian legends is not just slash, but something that moves me on a level of mythology. Sure it might bridge, but really? The modern world and its meshing with the medieval does not interest me because it is everywhere, and I see it in one huge great continuum. Having it pointed out to me in such a heavy handed way loses all the subtlety and beauty that I love in history.
:P
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Date: 2008-12-09 07:33 am (UTC)I do hope that Merlin fanfic readers will stop talking about an essentialist view of Arthurian Lit.
As my professor puts it, there are many approaches to the literature. One is to focus on medieval texts, that's his approach, but Arthurian Lit encompasses all treatments of the legend. It's one reason the subject is doing well in the critical theory emphasis of UW's English program.
I miss the Christian elements, and certainly you would more than anyone.
But I can see why the BBC chose not to include it. There are some fairly, mmm, tense responses even here to Christianity. I've had to explain that it's like the color the sky in the medieval era: it's just there, part and parcel with the world. You can't study medieval texts without at least taking a bible as literature class.
I've included some of the ignored Christian elements in a short fic. I wonder what the response will be. Testing the waters, I guess, in this new fandom, to see if its open to including this aspect of the medieval world.
(I've also done research on medieval kitchens and food, but that's just part of the fun for me. *g*)
I like the idea of Arthur genuflecting and doing confession. It sends my mind to naughty places. ;) And Arthur casually assuming that Merlin is Christian (what? isn't everyone?). And Merlin is, but his mum follows St. Patrick's church which, oh no, celebrates Easter on the wrong day, "can't you do anything right, Merlin?" And the Archbishop of Canterbury, ever present in Geoffrey and Malory, interceding and acting as an unpredictable counterbalance to Uther's absolute power. Sometimes supporting him, sometimes intervening on behalf of sorcerers with high connections. I don't see it as a Christianity vs. Pagan issue so much as a second court of appeal.
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Date: 2008-12-09 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-09 06:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-09 09:31 am (UTC)One thing I was wondering, although I know you'll probably not be able to get back to me as you're so busy (good luck with your finals btw!) is Merlin's age in previous texts. I've just started reading Le Morte D'Arthur and although it doesn't imply he's a boy, it doesn't say what age he is, or describe him at all (so far), just that he can appear in different guises. So I was wondering where the popular equation of Merlin with an old man came from. Will ask
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Date: 2008-12-09 09:35 am (UTC)I definitely need some luck with this last 10-page paper. I'm... stuck.
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From:here via the merlin newsletter!
Date: 2008-12-09 11:31 am (UTC)thanks for all the research and wrapping it up!
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Date: 2008-12-09 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-09 04:11 pm (UTC)The article
Date: 2008-12-09 04:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-09 06:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-09 06:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-09 09:43 pm (UTC)I love what I'm doing now, but sometimes I miss academia. I've just caught up on BBC's Merlin (late to the party, I know), and I haven't read too many of the legends although of course I know the basic story (could hardly escape it with that kind of major). This type of thing fills so many gaps for me, it shows me the historical context I wanted to see but wasn't well-read enough to sort out for myself right now.
You're inspired me to get back into what I learned (it was only two or three years ago *g*). The absence of religion in the BBC version of Merlin is quite interesting and compelling. I agree with your essay and some of the comments, I understand why they did it. It seems like it could've definitely been a sound decision at this moment in time. But it would be quite the thing to explore. Historical religion, magic, sorcery, and science had such...different definitions then than they do now, and trying to place them in a modern version of a historical context fails every time. You have to look at it from the time period of the people who lived then to truly understand it, something I feel like you've mentioned yourself, for example here, which expresses what I'm trying to say perfectly (and better than I can at the moment): A bishop isn't even found in the background of Arthur's coronation as heir apparent. Yes! Exactly! Given the time period Arthur's personal faith or lack thereof wouldn't have mattered particularly, it was a way of life and an important part to history.
Well, this comment all of sudden got very long and took off on a tangent to what I realize was a very small part of what you were talking about as a whole. In short, thanks so much for posting and I'm highly impressed. I enjoyed it a lot!
PS. I've friended you, I'd love to discuss some more of these things if you're ever so inclined, I promise I'm not normally this disorganized in my thought process. (Or so I tell myself. *g*)
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Date: 2008-12-09 10:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-10 03:17 am (UTC)coolness...
Date: 2008-12-10 09:36 pm (UTC)(I know people who maintain that Merlin was Irish in mythical origin. We Irish, you can't argue with them for love nor money;)
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Date: 2008-12-11 03:16 am (UTC)So the idea of a dragon stuck under a castle and giving out prophecy is part of the myth? COOL
You helped me a) love the show even more (I'm seriously not sure how that was possible) by helping me b) respect the author's more. Wonderful!!
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Date: 2008-12-11 05:52 am (UTC)He finds a young boy, Merlin, whose mother (there are various versions) had a virgin birth/was visited by a spirit, etc. The young boy then tells Vortigern that the priests don't know what they're talking about. He has Vortigern drain a pool beneath the foundations and predicts he will find two dragons there, one white, one red.
Vortigern does so, and lo and behold, there is a pool under the foundations, and there are two dragons. The dragons fight it out, and Merlin gives (in Geoffrey especially) a long series of extremely cryptic prophesies. Nostradamus has nothing on Merlin.
So the dragon part has been inverted. But there are dragons under the castle (though the castle probably isn't Camelot), and they are involved with prophesies, in a manner of speaking.
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Date: 2008-12-11 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-11 10:57 pm (UTC)Unfortunately, I imprinted so hard on Rosemary Sutcliff's version of the legend that I can't really deal with this new version. Also, no time, no time! Too much television, and the biggest draw for fandom seems to be the shiny slash pairing, which isn't enough to get me into a show.
But I'm glad everyone else is enjoying themselves!
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Date: 2008-12-11 11:19 pm (UTC)I love magic, and this deals with a young Merlin struggling to develop his skills as a sorcerer. I enjoy him struggle with a spell... and then nothing happens.
There's an irony, too. You know he's going to be this great sorcerer, that they'd be terrified of him if they knew his secret, but they don't. So everyone treats him like this well-meaning numb nut. When he gets thrown into the stocks for lying on Arthur's behalf, he's not too upset about it because he could turn the stocks to dust if he wanted to.
The best part is the guy who's playing him. He's got funny ears that stick out like a woodland creature's, and a trickle of complicated quirkiness that runs through his expression at lines that could be played flat, like he's finding something funny that no one else can see.
Merlin could be played a lot of ways, but his version is complicated, quirky, unpredictable, and genuinely enjoying Camelot, life, his powers, and even his childish pranks. There's something about him that's unspoiled.
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Date: 2008-12-13 12:16 am (UTC)Great meta, I'm glad you've shown us how we can have our academic cake and eat it, too (with a healthy dollop of slashy love on top). Thanks for taking the time to share, and I hope you don't mind me friending you!
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Date: 2008-12-14 11:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-17 11:57 pm (UTC)That said: this is lovely and eloquent. Thank you so much for writing it!
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Date: 2009-01-07 10:56 pm (UTC)Have you ever blown a bubble within another soap bubble? It is a delicate task to build a story within another story, touching at certain junctures while ignoring others. Ignore too many and the believability for the audience will collapse. Keep too many, and the new story will be absorbed into the old. The tension between the two stories will be lost. More than just a new narrative, an additional subtle layer of tension between the old and the new story is created. This tension develops from expectations fulfilled, deviated from, and unfulfilled.
because I think it touches on a lot of the things that makes Merlin interesting. I love the tension between the older versions of Arthurian legend that we're familiar with and the new version that Merlin is creating. It makes it fascinating to try and figure out where they're going with the series.
I also think that you've written a wonderful essay, and made some great points. I'm not extremely familiar with the older versions of Arthurian legend, so I learned a lot from the examples you used to illustrate the similarities and differences between them and Merlin.
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Date: 2009-01-09 02:06 am (UTC)i maybe took Arthurian Lit twice at uni cos we studied different texts each time, and I have been LOVING Merlin like a mad mad loving thing.