The Legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table - Literature review Example

– please see final page The King Arthur Legend and its Impact on the Modern World The legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table has followed the Western European civilizations throughout the centuries beginning sometime prior to 1100 A.D. Although the legend changed and developed throughout time, the text that most represents the Arthur legend as it exists today is that brought together in book form by Sir Thomas Malory in 1485 under the title Le Morte D’Arthur. This story itself was developed utilizing many sources existing in Malory’s day including numerous Norman-French romances and an English alliterative epic entitled “Morte Arthur” (Baines, xi). However, the legend didn’t stop developing with Malory. Even as recently as 1982, authors were developing their own perspective of the Arthur legend in stories such as Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon. Movies such as “King Arthur” have been made as recently as 2004, also attempting to demystify the ancient reality from romanticized, heavily Christian-influenced myth. From Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur to Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon, the story of King Arthur transforms itself from a heroic, male-centric, Christian-oriented tale of great deeds to a female-oriented retelling of a decidedly non-Christian era and the rise and fall of the man who would bridge the dividing faiths. As this continuing fascination with the story begins to suggest, the meaning of the Arthurian legend reaches deep within our psyches to help us identify and define ourselves within our culture, particularly in how we relate to two key symbols – the Holy Grail and the sword of power – as they are described by the psychological theory of Emma Jung. It can be argued, of course, that the meaning of the text does not necessarily apply to all people as only those raised within the Western tradition are exposed to the stories of King Arthur and his knights. In addition, the stories have been around for so long and told in so many different ways that each person raised within this tradition seems to have their own conception of just what is meant by these magical objects and the role that they play in helping us determine our own inner quest. However, specificity of the legends as they are understood by various individuals are not necessarily as important as one might imagine. as the emphasis of Jungian analysis does not rest on the intentions or thoughts of the authors, but rather on the symbols that fall onto the page as a result of the author’s interaction with the collective unconscious. “The Grail motif is interiorized by the individuals who are caught by its spell. It is singular, celibate; finally sterile” (Jones, 2007) thanks to the general understanding of the quest regardless of differing renditions. This conclusion is indicated by the failure of most of the knights who have embarked on the quest for the Grail to return. Although some, such as Galahad, did manage to find the Grail, he, too, also failed to find his way back to the others, thus failing to bring the wisdom of the Grail home and again emphasizing the individuality of the process inherent in the tale. Finding the Grail was only beneficial to the one and not helpful to any of the others. “The Grail focuses our attention internally. It’s the symbol of our ultimate spiritual destiny, our individuation after trials” (Adcox, 2004). In addition, because the Grail quest is primarily one of the masculine searching for the inner feminine, there remains little room within the tale for the realization of the female individuation process, which must also occur if the two genders are to find common ground. Thus, the necessary combination of opposites is never fully achieved, again suggesting failure and celibacy in the quest regardless of the specifics in the tale told or the understandings given. In analyzing the meaning of the Arthurian legends, Emma Jung pointed out the presence of archetypal images like the Holy Grail and Excalibur as a means of relating the self to the mythical journeys in which these symbols appear. Perhaps the most influential of the four ancient symbols under discussion here is the ambiguous but ever-present Grail. Although the exact shape of the Grail has never been definitively determined, this very hazy detail only contributes to the emphasis upon meaning inherent in the object. The Grail has been described as everything from a stone that falls from the sky to a Celtic cauldron, a chalice of various levels of decoration and even the womb of a woman, Mary Magdalene in particular. As a result, it is most heavily identified with the concept of the feminine. In addition to the feminine, though, it is often referred to as a sacred vessel, whether in relation to the old pagan myths or as a result of the Christian links that will be discussed later. Through these connotations, the vessel becomes important not just because of its outer shape, but also as a result of its inner contents (Jones, 2007). This then becomes synonymous with the brain and the mind in which the shape of the contents determines the aspect of the self. While the shape of the Grail may not be fully identified or even consistent among tales, the importance of it remains in its relationship to the inner life of the self. This is particularly emphasized in the nature of the Grail quest, in which the action to be taken is an action of the mind rather than a physical battle of the body. The idea of the Grail is emphasized in the greater details of the earliest remaining renditions of the story in which it appears, such as in the Breton tradition where Peronik (later to be called Percival), a man who has been raised by a single mother (thus raised within a woman’s world), must find a magical castle and identify the miraculous goblet within that will restore the Fisher King to full health and thus resuscitate the surrounding lands. “It is equally easy to read this hidden realm, ‘difficult to find’ of the Grail Castle as not only the otherworld of British mythology, the land of eternal youth and plenty, but also the lost paradise of the Jungian unconscious: the ‘realm of the mothers’ from which, individually and collectively, we all take our being” (Jones, 2007). Before the world can be made whole and healthy again, Percival must find a means of bringing the Grail and its masculine counterpart together again (symbolized in his own gender as well as the healing of the king), thus illustrating in graphic form the true path of enlightenment as being an embrace of the conscious and the unconscious, the male and the female, into one cohesive whole. The Grail is also associated with numerous supernatural or mystic principles. It is linked with the Christian tradition in that it is reputed to have been the vessel used by Joseph of Arimathea to collect the blood of Christ upon his descent from the cross. Therefore, to find the Grail is to also find the redemption brought forward through the actions of Jesus Christ. Emma Jung has also linked the Grail with the principles of alchemy, suggesting that it introduces an alternative Christianity in which the concepts of spirituality that did not completely conform with the strict letter of the Orthodox church could be discussed and investigated. “Where orthodox Christianity failed the individual by insisting on a one-sided, positive, rational spiritual order, the alchemists and the Grail writers included the magical darkness, chaos and uncertainty of real inner experience. Where orthodoxy decreed salvation only through the mediation of priest and clergy, the Grail quest proposes a new vision. From now on each individual can become the Christ, the ideal Self, through his own stumbling efforts” (Jones, 2007). This again emphasizes the process of individuation identified by Jung as well as indicates that the process is never fully completed. Primarily what the Grail calls to mind is thus not necessarily just the object itself, being a shadowy, mysterious, poorly defined object, but rather the quest for the Grail that has been the subject of numerous pieces of literature throughout the centuries. The unique point of this quest as it is compared with other mythic quests of this sort is that the emphasis is not the group or the collective, but is rather placed upon the individual. “The knights seeking the Grail all enter the forest alone, apart from their fellows, in a place where the wood is thickest and where there is no path. When there is no path, only the self remains” (Adcox, 2004). In other words, a group of men search through the darkness of the self for the symbol of the feminine within them in the form of the symbolic object of the Grail. This quest thus represents a significant part of Jung’s individuation process in which the anima (the male) seeks and perhaps finds and incorporates the animus (the feminine within the male). “The knight achieves the symbol of femininity, uniting the opposites and healing the wound” (Adcox, 2004). To understand how this works, more must be understood about the personifications represented in the Anima and the Animus. According to Ackroyd (2005), “the Anima is the personification of all feminine psychological tendencies within a man, the archetypal feminine symbolism within a man’s unconscious.” Within this context, then, this becomes the hazy, indistinct shape of the Holy Grail, the feminine within the self that lies hidden, perhaps buried under a mountain of stereotypical conceptions of what it means to be a man versus what it means to be a woman. The Animus is thus described in nearly exact opposite terms as the masculine tendencies that reside within the female unconscious. “In dreams Jung said that the Animus is more likely to be personified by multiple male figures, while the anima is frequently a single female” (Ackroyd, 2005). These elements are considered necessary for either gender as a means of providing the bridge to understanding between the sexes. If men are to gain any understanding of women, they can only do so through the understanding of their own innate feminine tendencies through the anima. Likewise, women can only understand men through the Animus within them as their own masculine tendencies become better understood. These concepts correlate with the Grail legend of the multiple knights entering the forest to discover the single Grail as well as with the bevy of heroes attempting to gain use of the sword of power, often given the name Excalibur, and the single Lady of the Lake who determines the true owner. Perhaps as important as the Grail is the image of the sword of power, often provided with the familiar name of Excalibur. As the Grail is imagined to be an object of power passed directly from the hands of the gods into the keeping of humans, so is the sword considered to be a gift of the gods imbuing its human wielder with supernatural power and strength. While the Grail enters the world through the masculine venue of the Fisher King, the sword enters the human realm through the hand of the Lady of the Lake, a goddess figure. In many ways, then, Excalibur, a tool of battle and masculine strength, can be seen as the direct opposite of the Grail. While the Grail is intended to heal, the sword is intended to wound (Jones, 2007). While the Grail comes from the masculine powers of the god, the sword comes from the feminine powers of the goddess. Within the legends, the knights are off pursuing the legendary Grail while the single female, Morgana or Morgan le Fey (of the fairies) is attempting to discover Excalibur and turn it to her own uses. The men are seeking the feminine, the female is seeking the masculine. Each are attempting to find the missing portion of their inner self, yet the means of doing so require different approaches and different magical symbols. The sword of power fulfills the female side of the individuation process in the same way in which the Grail fulfills the male side within the general contexts of the myth. The attainment of it is only achieved by those who are deemed worthy by virtue of their outstanding inner qualities rather than outward possessions or physicality and is thus available to anyone at the same time that it is available to no one (Garbis, 2002). Since it can only be wielded by the hero, it is important to recognize the qualities that are associated with the hero through the general conception of the Arthurian tale from which the symbol springs. The hero archetype represents in symbolic form the process of individuation itself. In the Arthurian legend, the hero’s story begins with an unusual birth/conception that marks him as special, followed by a call to action in some form (the pulling of the sword from the stone) in his later childhood, an initiation period (such as the instruction of Merlin) through his teen years and a transcendent period (the many years of happy reign after killing the old king and marrying a princess) (Garbis, 2002). The archetype will often move beyond this process, however, to include the hero’s loss of favor with the gods and his eventual mysterious downfall and mystical funeral, ensuring that he will always be remembered. As has been indicated, however, the quest for the sword necessarily emerges from the female. As the feminine symbol of the Grail can only be obtained through the intervention of the male, the masculine symbol of the sword can only be obtained through the intervention of the female. This is true whether one thinks of the story in terms of the sword in the stone or the passing of the sword from the Lady of the Lake to Arthur. This is also emphasized in the presentation of the hero figure himself through its concentration on his unusual conception, elements unimportant in the Grail myth itself. In the last act of Arthur, getting the sword back to the Lady, the true magical properties of the sword are revealed. It is a weapon that can be used to designate power and control as well as to maim and kill. However, in the right setting and place, in combination with the Grail and the presence of the feminine, it can also be used to heal and to make new. “The philosopher’s stone is produced by the unity of divine opposites, the sphere of divine unwillingness, non-being, death and the sphere of divine will, being and life. The sun and shadow rotate casting their opposites; the God, Dionysius, sun’s shadow, killing and dismembering the alchemist (I kill and make alive), and the sun God, Apollo, raising the alchemist to eternal life (I wound and heal), which is exactly what psychoanalysis does” (Hull, 2001). As the female experiences the male through the myths of the magic sword and the male experiences the female through the legend of the Holy Grail, pre-determined definitions begin to break down and new abilities are discovered. Each gains new understanding of the other as well as the self and is thus able to progress through their individual process. As this continuing fascination with the story suggests, the meaning of the Arthurian legend reaches deep within our psyches to help us identify and define ourselves within our culture, particularly in how we relate to two key symbols – the Holy Grail and the sword of power – as they are described by the psychological theory of Emma Jung. Works Cited Ackroyd, Eric. “The Individuation Process.” Myths, Dreams, Symbols. (2007). December 10, 2007 Adcox, John. “The Sword and the Grail: Restoring the Forgotten Archetype in Arthurian Myth.” The Widening Gyre. (2004). December 10, 2007 Garbis, Michelle R. Archetypes. December 10, 2007 Hull, Gary. “Carl Jung.” Criticism of Objectionism. (2001). December 10, 2007 Jones, Gwyneth. “The Holy Grail.” (2007). December 10, 2007 Writer’s note – Just to be sure I was clear on this, this paper explores the meaning of the King Arthur legend as it helps us understand our own process of individuation or maturing. This is established in the introductory paragraph. The concession paragraph (immediately following the introduction) acknowledges that there are many interpretations of the story and the story is not germane to the entire world, but that for those who know it at all, the specifics have little bearing on the subconscious meaning of the stories. The five points in support of my argument are the physical nature of the Grail quest, the mental nature of the Grail quest, the struggle between the Anima and the Animus, the physical nature of Excalibur and the mental nature of Excalibur. Read More