Essay Questions

There are three significant king figures in the poem: Arthur, the Emperor Lucius, and Mordred (who usurps Arthur's throne). Pick two of these characters and compare and contrast them.

Comparative and contrast points:

Arthur and Lucius are both experienced rulers in the feudal tradition. They govern large expanses of territory and are accustomed to command. Mordred, though of noble blood, is an upstart.

Arthur and Mordred are blood relatives, having been raised in England. Mordred is in fact the son of Arthur's sister (and other tales suggest he is also Arthur's illegitimate offspring). Both Arthur and Mordred are devoted to Wenour, Arthur's wife, and they both marry her although Mordred's claim occurs after Arthur is already married. Both Arthur and Mordred are competent military leaders: although Arthur has a clear victory over Mordred at sea, Mordred's forces easily defeat and slaughter a portion of Arthur's army commanded by Gawain, which disembarks early and is not reinforced in time.

Both Lucius and Mordred are depicted as less-than-legitimate rulers. They rely on mercenary armies since they are unable to raise followers to go to war the way Arthur does. This could be due to a weakness in their cause, or a weakness in their characters as individuals. When Arthur is attacking Lucius's forces, he enjoys divine favor. This favor is not withdrawn until he exceeds the limits of his initial "just" war and begins a war of conquest. Mordred in particular does not embody the knightly virtues of restraint and mercy: every man in Gawain's force is killed, and no prisoners are taken. Arthur, by contrast, is the sort of leader who allows Lucius's emissaries to depart unmolested even though he has just declared war on Lucius.

Explain and discuss the literary techniques used in Arthur's two dreams.

The first dream, with the dragon and the bear, is an allegorical reference to Arthur's defeat of either a giant or Lucius and his armies. Both events subsequently occur. The dream foreshadows them and also develops Arthur's character by establishing him as a person who has prophetic dreams.

The second dream, with Lady Fortune and the Wheel of Fortune, features some traditional medieval symbolism in the form of a wheel that symbolizes luck. A person might be high or low in position, but wheels turn sometimes and the mighty are brought low and vice versa. Political commentary occurs in this scene, which legitimizes certain leaders yet to come, and the character Fortune herself is a personification of luck.

Explain the significance of the female characters in the poem. Does the poem pass the Bechdel test?

The poem does not pass the Bechdel test: it contains only four named female characters, one of which is dead by the time she enters the story, and none of them speak to one another. The three female characters are Waynor (Guenivere), the Duchess of Brittany (Waynor's cousin), and Lady Fortune who appears to Arthur in a dream. Although the male characters speak at length particularly in the early part of the poem when debating whether to go to war, the female speech is brief.

Waynor appears as a person who is present when the foreign ambassadors from Lucius are entertained, but she does not speak during the war council. She expresses sorrow at Arthur's departure, and is upset about the war because it will keep the two of them apart, possibly whenever. When Mordred usurps Arthur, Waynor marries Mordred instead. Arthur does not appear to blame her for this, which suggests it is not her choice. Waynor is therefore not a character who takes direct action, although she provides a reason for the male characters to act (or not).

The Duchess of Brittany is what a movie-maker would call an "off-screen" character. She is raped and murdered by a giant whom Arthur fights and kills. Although she has no spoken lines (being dead often has that effect) she is a reason for male characters to take action.

The Duchess of Metz is the wife of the Duke of Metz, who has hired Saracens to help defend the city. After a long siege, in response to her request for mercy for her city. Arthur ensures that no women, children, clergy, or "virtuous knights" are killed during the subsequent sack. The fate of common tradesmen, or the Saracens, is not mentioned. Unlike Waynor and the Duchess of Brittany, the Duchess of Metz has actual agency and makes decisions.

The final female character in the poem is Lady Fortune, a personification of luck who appears to Arthur in a dream immediately after he announces his intent to invade the Holy Land. She converses with him at length, tells him he has traitors in his midst, and grants him a vision of leaders to come. But the discussion centers on male characters only. The betrayal is presented as something that has already occurred, most likely during the lengthy siege at Metz.

Describe and explain the alliterative technique used in this poem. The explanation should include references to meter and syllabic structure and emphasis.

The poem is not divided into stanzas like later epics. Instead, each line is broken up into halves. Each half-line has an alliterated syllable which generally occurs at the beginning of the word but which invariably occurs on the syllable of the word to be emphasized or accented.

Meter-wise, each half-line contains more than one alliterative pulse. The first half-line of each line contains two to three pulses; the last half-line contains two. The alliterative sound will be the same within a given half-line, but the syllable being emphasized may differ from one half-line to the next. However these alliterated syllables, which fall on the portions of the words to be emphasized, are not part of any particular meter. The alliterative stresses do not follow the Greek tradition in which there is a rhythm of anapestic or similar metric "feet" with the same pattern of emphasis. There might be one, two, three, or even more other less-emphasized syllables in a group with an alliterated emphasis syllable. Such emphasis or verbal stress as occurs generally falls on a symbol that is alliterated.