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Queeste. Tijdschrift over middeleeuwse letterkunde in de Nederlanden. Jaargang 1995 (1995)

Queeste. Tijdschrift over middeleeuwse letterkunde in de Nederlanden. Jaargang 1995

(1995)– [tijdschrift] Queeste–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

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Opening up the Narrative
The Insertion of New Episodes in Arthurian Cycles*
Frank Brandsma

The important role ascribed to the reader in modern literary theory often makes it difficult to relate new theories to medieval literature, since we know so little of medieval readers and listeners. The only evidence available has to be gleaned from the texts where, for instance, a writer reacts to the work of a predecessor and from the manuscripts in which scribes have turned out to be meticulous readers by adding episodes to fill out gaps in the original narrative. The concept of the ‘gap’ (‘Leerstelle’) is central to Wolfgang Iser's theory of the interactive relationship between reader and text. Deliberately or unconsciously the author leaves ‘gaps’ in his text which each individual reader is invited to fill out in his own way. Thus an ‘Auslegungsspielraum’, a playground for interpretation, is created.1 In my opinion the idea of the ‘inviting gap’ is a useful concept for the analysis and interpretation of the things we see scribes do in medieval manuscripts.

The growing interest in the specific status and characteristics of each individual manuscript has resulted in excellent studies of scribal activities, which show that many scribes have been more than just plodding penpushers. The scribes sometimes were editors, as Elspeth Kennedy has shown for Lancelot en prose manuscripts, and compilers, as, for instance, the studies of codices by Lori Walters and Cedric Pickford demonstrate.2 In the Middle Dutch Lancelot Compilation the scribe even crosses the line and becomes an author in his own right, when he adds episodes and even a romance he probably created himself to his compilation.

I wonder, however, whether it is correct to draw lines between the different functions we see the same scribe perform. I prefer to follow Lori Walters who speaks of the famous scribe Guiot as ‘copiste, continuateur, compilateur et auteur à différents moments de sa carrière’.3 It seems sensible to situate scribal activities on a scale with plain copying at the bottom and original creation at the top. The relative positions of given scribal acts on this scale would then indicate the measure of their divergence from the original text, or - adopting Douglas Kelly's term - the measure of their ‘disjointure’.4

In general, the guiding principles of scribal additions may be the same all along the scale. The difference between adding a small episode and inserting a complete adapted version of an existing text may lie more in the larger dimensions than in the application of other narrative techniques. The general principles that the insertions of relatively small episodes reveal may be useful to the description and explanation of the larger ‘operations’ in Arthurian cycles.5 I will explore this line of research by comparing the seven well-established additions to Chrétien's Perceval and two insertions in the short version of the prose Lancelot, printed by Sommer and recently discussed by Carol Chase, with the activities of the principal scribe of the Middle Dutch Lancelot Compilation.6 I have chosen additions to a verse romance and to a prose text because they may reveal different methods of insertion, that may become relevant in the comparison with the Lancelot Compilation, which combines verse translations of the prose Lancelot-Queste-Mort Artu with adaptations of seven Middle Dutch verse romances.

The Lancelot Compilation's principal scribe, commonly known as scribe b, wrote about one hundred and fifty of the two hunderd and forty folios in the codex, which dates from the beginning of the fourteenth century. b is active during all phases of the making of the manuscript that have been established on the basis of codicological irregularities.7 He has committed to parchment the final section of the Lancelot en prose translation, the Queeste and Arturs doet and all of the seven incorporated romances. In one of the inserted romances, an abbreviated rendering of the Vengeance Raguidel called the Wrake van Ragisel, b has added six lines in the margin to correct an inconsistency in the narrative caused by the adaptation of the original Vengeance translation. The editorial nature of this addition is best explained by the assumption that b was the compiler as well as the scribe, as Bart Besamusca has argued.8 In the Queeste b seems to have been a faithful scribe, but for the insertion of four references: one retrospective reference to the preceding Perchevael and three prospective remarks that connect the Queeste with the Wrake that is to follow in the compilation.9

The additions to Chrétien's Perceval and the prose Lancelot all have come into existence before or around the first half of the fourteenth century. Since it is not direct influence that I am after, but the general practice of inserting new material, the chronology does not impede the comparison of these episodes with the Lancelot Compilation and nor does so the extremely slim chance of their availability to the Middle Dutch scribe. I will concentrate on two aspects of the insertions: their

unobtrusiveness and the ‘inviting gaps’ in the original texts.10

In order to keep a low profile, the amplifying scribes carefully tune their lines to those of the original texts, making use of the same style, motives and characters, and, in the case of the Perceval, even re-using verses from other parts of the text.11 Often only comparison with other copies reveals that there has been an insertion in a given manuscript, especially since most of the additions result in a more consistent narrative. In the prose Lancelot, where ‘li contes’ and the ‘Or dist li contes’-formulas dominate the presentation of the text, the added episodes use the proper impersonal narrator and perfect ‘formal switches’ when narrative threads are interlaced. The exception that proves the rule here is the sudden appearrance of a first-person narrator in the Gawain adventures which in three Lancelot manuscripts have been added to the ‘Charrette’ section. Here, in four retrospective formulas suddenly a scribal ‘I’ appears, stating: En tele maniere comme ie vous conte.12

As compiler, scribe b of the Lancelot Compilation tends to hide just like his Old French counterparts. Like the scribal insertions in the Lancelot en prose, the additions to the compilation show a consequent use of the formal switch, here used in the particular form of the Dutch Lanceloet-Queeste-Arturs doet that allows for a more prominent first-person narrator.13 It is, however, impossible to isolate the compiler's ‘I’ from this narrator's persona.14

In the original versions of the adapted, and often abbreviated, inserted romances, impersonal narrators like ‘li contes’ had no say, but the compiler systematical-

ly adds these formulas at points where the narrative focus changes from one character to another. Adopting the concept Povl Skårup introduced at the Amsterdam conference on cyclification, the recurrent formulas are ‘signaux cycliques’ that stress the unity of the cycle.15 The compiler even tends to put them where they are not strictly necessary in view of the narrative technique of interlace in the Lancelot. It happens quite frequently that the added formula does not mark an actual switch to a new narrative thread, but just the start of a new journey for the protagonist. In the standard versions of the prose Lancelot this does not occur, but one of the additions to this text shows a similar, unneccessary use of the formal switch.16 If the scribe responsible for this addition and the Dutch compiler have slightly overdone their camouflage in this regard, they have succeeded in disguising their work quite well, on the whole.

I will now take leave of the unobtrusiveness of the additions and formally switch to the second aspect of the insertions: the ‘inviting gaps’. Throughout the discussion of this aspect, I will also discuss the way new epsiodes were inserted.

The finest example of a well-defined ‘gap’ is found in Chrétien's Perceval, when the hero is told that the sword given to him by the Fisher King will fail him at the first test. When Perceval then fights the Orgeilleus de la Lande, however, it is almost disappointing to discover that nothing more is said about the sword or its breaking. It soon becomes clear that the narrator does not feel like giving a detailed description of the sword fight: he even thinks it paine gastee.17 Taking this ‘brevitas’-formula as their cue, three scribes have considered it worth their effort to fulfill the expectations raised by Chrétien's text and to describe the breaking of the sword in their own words. The scope of their efforts ranges from a brief twenty-line statement that the sword broke and that Perceval used the sword he took from the Red Knight to finish the fight, to the intricate double insertion in the Arundel manuscript, in which the scribe in the first part of its addition provides the ‘inviting gap’ that the second part of his own insertion will fill.18 The most striking element of these independent additions is the fact that all three of

them open up the narrative at exactly the same point, just before the couplet of the ‘brevitas’-formula and while the sword fight is in full swing. Rounding off their own lines with a couplet, it was easy for the scribes to return to the original narrative, even if their home-made descriptions of the fight gave the ‘brevitas’-formula, which each of them retained, a new and sometimes somewhat contradicting context.

Two of the other additions to the Perceval and those to the prose Lancelot favour openings not in the middle of a narrative segment but rather at its end, for instance when the protagonist has rounded off one day's adventures, found a place to stay the night and in the morning takes leave of his host to go his own way again.19 The main technical difference between the additions to verse and those to prose texts is that in the prose romances these resting-points in the story are transformed into formal switches when the narrative is opened up to allow an insertion.

The fulfilling of the precise prophesy of the sword's breaking, which motivates four of the seven additions to the Perceval, is the most specific ‘inviting gap’ I have come across in the texts consulted. In the prose Lancelot and in the Lancelot Compilation the invitations are a little less particular. Usually they are related to the quests that two or more knights undertake. In the ‘Charrette’ section of the prose Lancelot, Gawain's attempts to cross the underwater bridge are not described, but at different points in the story the outline of the adventure is given. In an addition to three manuscripts this outline is filled in with a detailed description of Gawain's failure.20 In these manuscripts, the narrative of Lancelot's deeds is neatly opened at the end of the day's work: Lancelot is on his way to his lodgings, when by means of a regular ‘formal switch’ the attention shifts to Gawain. Later on, a similar formula takes the narrative back to Lancelot arriving at his ostel.21

The inviting gap with regard to the participants in the quest for the insane Lancelot in the final part of the ‘Préparation à la Queste’ is similar to that in the ‘Charrette’: the fact that Bohort, Lionel and Hector after Lancelot's disappearance immediately leave the court to search for him and are soon followed by Gawain and thirty-one other knights calls for a description of their adventures.22

Whereas the original text does not give these adventures, an extended version in seven manuscripts shows that a scribe has taken up the glove. He inserted a regular quest structure, featuring Bohort, Lionel, Hestor and Gawain and mentioning many of the other participants. It is surprising to see how many thematic ‘loose ends’ (such as failed promises to return to a damsel) from all over the Lancelot the scribe has been able to pick up and work into his addition, making it for Bohort especially a painful trip down Memory Lane.23 In this case, like in the three Perceval additions, a ‘brevitas’-formula gave the scribe the green light to transform the original switch to the adventures of Agloval into the start of the quest by Gawain and his companions. The new quest shows the well-known pattern of a short trip together followed by a dispersion of the knights at a crossroads. After that, the usual formal switches structure the interlaced quest according to the rules established in the original text. The final switch of the insertion smoothly returns to the ‘brevitas’-formula and to Agloval's adventures.

In our eyes, the quests hold more than enough adventures and participants, yet the scribes seem to have felt the need for even more. The same goes for the Middle Dutch compiler, who, for instance, in his Moriaen-story added an extra Lancelot-adventure to the quest for Moriaen's father.24 In his Perchevael, which only gives the Gawain episodes from Chrétien's text and from the First Continuation, the compiler has filled out Gawain's journey to the judicial duel with Ginganbrisiel with a quest structure similar to that in the ‘Préparation’ and including, for instance, a ‘crossroads’-scene.25 At a point corresponding to the beginning of the First continuation, when Gawain has left the court in anger, he inserted a complete Gawain quest with twenty-four participants, which again strongly resembles the ‘Préparation’ insertion.26 In his opening of the narrative and in the internal interlace structure of the added quests, the compiler follows the same lines as the scribes of the additions to the prose Lancelot, especially with regard to the application of the formal switches. Writing in verse and inserting new episodes in a verse romance, he used the insertion techniques that we find in the additions to the French prose text.

In the first phase of the making of the compilation, the compiler seems to have taken the ‘inviting gap’ in the quest for the insane Lancelot even further than the French scribe. Codicological evidence indicates that he inserted his Perchevael in the framework of this quest. In this first set-up the adventures of the young Perceval, only just brought to court by his brother Agloval and already participating in the Lancelot quest, are followed by the Gawain adventures in the Perchevael and amplified with extra quests which feature Perceval himself in a very positive role. At the end of Gawain's adventures the compiler returned by means of a formal switch to the episode of Lancelot's recovery - and thus to copying the ‘Préparation’-translation. Unfortunately, only the first page of his version of this episode has come down to us. The manuscript does show that the complex insertion of the Perchevael into the existing interlace structure was eventually abandoned by the compiler in favour of a more regular construction in which the healing of Lancelot's madness completely preceded this text. The loss of the folios containing the end of the ‘Préparation’-translation makes it impossible to reconstruct the compiler's final version here.

The consistent way in which the six other texts were inserted shows that the compiler applied the formal switches not only to insert episodes, but also on a larger scale to insert and fit together his adaptations of complete texts. Transforming the concluding reunion at Arthur's court of one romance and the beginning at Arthur's court of another into one extensive formal switch, he bridged the gaps between the inserted texts and between the extra romances and the Queeste and Arturs doet. Thus the formal switches as ‘signaux cycliques’ merge the texts into the general narrative framework. In this large operation, however, it is hard to see the specific ‘inviting gap’ that was so clearly visible in the additions to the French text, in the compiler's insertions in the Moriaen and Perchevael, and in his first attempt to insert his home-made Perchevael. It seems that near the top of the scribal acts-scale other motives come into play, while the same formal switchmethod still functions. This calls for further research. For now I will only suggest that perhaps the problems posed by the first Perchevael insertion made the compiler settle for a less intricate and technically easier way of insertion.

Accepting the invitation of Wolfgang Iser's ‘gap’ theory and of the appendices to the new Perceval edition, I hope to have demonstrated that the modern concept of the ‘inviting gap’ may contribute to a better understanding of the additions to the Perceval, the prose Lancelot and - in its first phase - the Lancelot Compilation, and that rhetorical devices like the ‘brevitas’-formula and especially the formal switch are important signals for and instruments of the amplifying scribes. For the medieval scribes and compilers, and in a way also for us medievalists reading each other's articles and adding our own writings to the vast stream of scholarship, in the end it all seems to come down to the irresistible lure of ‘gloser la lettre’...

Samenvatting

In dit artikel wordt gepoogd het inzicht in de genese van de Lancelotcompilatie te vergroten door te kijken naar het invoegen van episodes in andere teksten, met name Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval en de Lancelot en prose. Aan de hand van Wolfgang Iser's concept van de ‘Open plek’ wordt verondersteld dat de kopiistentoevoegingen uitgelokt werden door ‘gaten’ in de oorspronkelijke tekst. De invoeging van teksten en tekstgedeelten in de Lancelotcompilatie blijkt qua aanleiding en qua invoegingsmethode vergelijkbaar met de invoegingen in de onderzochte Oudfranse teksten.

 

Address of the author:

Universiteit Utrecht

Vakgroep Literatuurwetenschap

Muntstraat 4

nl-3512 ev Utrecht

e-mail: Frank.Brandsma@let.ruu.nl


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