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Lisa Kazianka, BA

“Boys will be boys, even the ones who are only girls dressed up”

A Study of Masculinity(ies) in Two Contemporary Arthurian Narratives for Children

MASTERARBEIT

zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades

Master of Arts

Studium der Anglistik und Amerikanistik

Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt

Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften

Begutachter: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jörg Helbig

Vorbegutachterin: Margaret Holt, B.A., M.A.

Institut: Department of English and American Studies

24. April 2015

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Affidavit

I hereby declare in lieu of an oath that

- the submitted academic paper is entirely my own work and that no auxiliary materials have been used other than those indicated,

- I have fully disclosed all assistance received from third parties during the process of writing the paper, including any significant advice from supervisors,

- any contents taken from the works of third parties or my own works that have been included either literally or in spirit have been appropriately marked and the respective source of the information has been clearly identified with precise bibliographical references (e.g. in footnotes),

- to date, I have not submitted this paper to an examining authority either in Austria or abroad and that

- the digital version of the paper submitted for the purpose of plagiarism assessment is fully consistent with the printed version.

I am aware that a declaration contrary to the facts will have legal consequences.

(Signature) (Place, date)

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Abstract

This thesis provides an analysis of the depiction of masculinity(ies) in two

contemporary Arthurian narratives for children, Jane Yolen’s Sword of the Rightful King – A

Novel of King Arthur (2003) and Philip Reeve’s Here Lies Arthur (2007). Based on the

assumption that the portrayal of gender roles in children’s literature influences young readers

in their development of an understanding of ‘male’ and ‘female’, the selected novels have

been analysed according to their portrayal of male characters and their adherence to or

rejection of ‘traditional’ masculinity as embedded in the rules of the ‘boy code’ (Pollack

1999), as well as in their use and depiction of female-to-male cross-dressers and their

performance and experience of ‘masculinity’. In Sword of the Rightful King male characters

largely comply with the majority of the imperatives of the ‘boy code’, typifying the

‘traditional’ ideology of masculinity, by being stoic and violent, demonstrating power and

control, and hiding all feelings except for anger in order to be accepted by society and resist

being labelled as ‘cowards’ or regarded as ‘feminine’. The imperatives of the ‘boy code’ are

also addressed in Reeve’s novel, however, to the effect that the social construction of gender

becomes visible and is criticised within the story. This is largely due to the use of cross-

dressed characters, whose experiences reveal the constructed nature of gender, and thus, of

masculinity. Even though the protagonist in Yolen’s novel, too, is a cross-dresser, the effect is

not as marked as in Here Lies Arthur. Analysing the representation of masculinity(ies) in

children’s fiction is valuable as it can reveal how the dominant gender ideology is either

maintained or challenged in books for the young, who are influenced and shaped by the ideas

and messages conveyed in stories – especially stories that are being retold, such as the tales of

King Arthur and his knights. Such retellings introduce young readers to “the social, ethical

and aesthetic values of the producing culture” (Stephens 2009, 91) and can thus be important

vehicles of ideology. As such they are pivotal for the changing of stereotypical thinking in

regard to masculinity(ies) and the concept of gender as a whole.

Keywords: Children’s Literature, Gender, Masculinity, Boy Code, Chivalry, King Arthur,

Arthurian Legend

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Preface

“Admitting one does not understand is the beginning of wisdom,” Merlinnus said. (Yolen 2003, 116)

Writing this thesis has been the most challenging task during my studies. At the same

time, however, it has been the most interesting and exciting piece of academic writing I have

worked on so far. The field of Arthurian literature is vast – really vast. A fact I had really not

been aware of when I first proposed to write a paper on this topic, inspired by Philip Reeve’s

Here Lies Arthur (2007), which we had read in one of the classes in the BA programme. With

a topic as vast as the Arthurian legends, the possibilities are endless. Which is why it was

more than just difficult for me to decide which direction to go and which questions to ask.

The idea was to combine an Arthurian topic with my first and foremost area of interest: the

field of children’s literature. The original aim was to analyse the different representations of

King Arthur in twenty-first-century children’s and young adult fiction – the way in which

King Arthur depicted in these stories for young readers, what values the different ‘Arthurs’

represent, what ideologies? Inspired by my colleagues from the Research Forum, and after

countless hours of research, however, I found that my paper required more focus. The

research continued. Until I realised there was one aspect of ideology that was most fascinating

to me: the issue of gender – in particular, the study of masculinities. Reading through pages

and pages of my notes, which I had collected during my research stay at our partner

institution, Bangor University in Wales, I found that the concept of masculinity has indeed

played an important role in the history of the Arthurian legend, already throughout the Middle

Ages in regards to chivalry, but particularly from the nineteenth century onwards. This thesis

is my attempt to contribute to two growing fields of research: the study of masculinities and

the study of children’s Arthuriana. I tremendously enjoyed working on this paper, and I do

hope that reading it will prove interesting for whoever chooses to have a look at it. In Jane

Yolen’s novel, Merlinnus says, “Time is always on the side of the young […]. Which is why

they spend it so recklessly.” (Yolen 2003, 310). I do hope the reader will not, in hindsight,

come to view the reading of this thesis as time spent recklessly.

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Acknowledgements

Many people deserve to be appreciated for the support they have given me during the

process of writing this thesis and during my studies in general. First of all, I want to thank my

parents, who are simply the kindest, most understanding people on this (and any other) planet

– thank you for always supporting me in everything I do (even if sometimes – in regard to my

studies – it is something you probably don’t understand) – the same goes for Kevin: thank

you very, very much. I want to say a special ‘Thank You’ to Ms Holt, who has not only

provided useful advice on thesis-related topics, but who has helped and guided me throughout

my studies, always lending an ear to my ideas and aspirations. I also want to express my

gratitude to Dr Raluca Radulescu from Bangor University, who made it possible for me to go

to Bangor on a research visit to study the Arthurian legend in the university’s truly

magnificent library; and to Dr Maureen McCue, who kindly helped me get organised there

and offered useful advice. Further, I want to thank Prof. Helbig for supporting me in the

application for the scholarship to visit Bangor University, which would not have been

possible without the financial aid provided by the Studienrektorat. Another ‘Thank You’ is

directed at Prof. Tschachler and my colleagues from the Research Forum (14W), who

patiently listened to my talks and presentation about King Arthur and provided me with useful

advice and interesting discussions. The same goes for my lovely colleagues in the Writing

Centre programme, who have made me realise that I am not alone with my worries and that

‘failure is always an option’. Finally, I want to say a special, special thanks to Andrea, whose

motivation and joy regarding all things academic have inspired me throughout my MA studies

and continuously led me to pursue my goals – largely under never-before-experienced (and

mostly self-imposed) time pressure. In Jane Yolen’s novel, Merlinnus cannot stop thinking

about how time is something of which he has so little left. We know how that feels.

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Table of Contents

Affidavit i Abstract ii Preface iii Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents v List of Abbreviations vi

1! Introduction 1!2! Ideology and Gender: Laying the Foundation for Analysis 5!

2.1! Ideology: From the French Revolution to Children’s Lit Criticism 6!2.2!Gender: A Social, Cultural and Historical Construct 7!

3! Arthurian Literature Through the Ages: An Overview 13!3.1!Mythology and ‘History’: The Origins of the Legend 14!3.2! Fathers of Arthurian Lit: The Chronicle and Romance Tradition 16!3.3! “The Chivalric Sense of Masculinity”: Chivalry in the Medieval Romance 19!3.4!Return From the Continent: Malory’s Morte 21!3.5! Propaganda, Politics and Parody: The ‘Nadir’ of Arthurian Literature? 22!3.6!A “Timeless Model For Manhood”?: The Nineteenth-Century Arthurian Revival 24!3.7!An Anti-War Message: T.H. White’s The Once and Future King 26!3.8!Modern Arthuriana: Tendencies and Developments 27!

4! Children’s Literature: An Introduction 31!4.1! ‘Children’s Literature’ and ‘Childhood’: The Troubles of Definition 31!4.2!Of Purity and Innocence: Changing Conceptions of ‘Childhood’ 31!4.3! ‘Utile et Dolce’: The Purpose(s) of Children’s Literature 32!4.4!Origins and History: The Development of Children’s Literature 33!4.5! ‘Dick and Jane’: Gender in Children’s Literature 35!4.6! ‘Chivalric Gentlemen’ In the Making: Victorian and Edwardian Versions of the

Legend for Children 36!4.7! ‘Knights of King Arthur’: The Legend for Boys (and Girls) in America 38!

5! Analysis 40!5.1!Arthurian Stories with a Twist: Introducing the Selected Novels 40!5.2! “Boys Will Be Boys”: The ‘Boy Code’ under Scrutiny 42!

“I can walk myself” – The “Sturdy Oak”-Rule 44!“I have a sword, too” – The “Give ‘em hell”-Imperative 48!“They will all follow power” – The “Big-Wheel”-Imperative 60!“Do not let there be any embroidery on it” – The “No Sissy Stuff”-Rule 64!“The pretty maids” – Expressing Sexual Desire for Females 67!

5.3! “I’ve almost forgotten that I ever was a girl”: Masculinity and Cross-Dressing 71!A Liberatory Experience – The Potential of Female-to-Male Cross-Dressing 71!“People see what they expect to see” – Successful Performances 73!“I found it when I cleaned his wardrobe” – Cross-Dressing as Secondary Element 76!“Then you must learn” – Masculinity and Femininity as Social Constructs 77!“Not Quite As He’d Expected” – The ‘World of Men’ 80!

6! Conclusion 84!Bibliography 88!

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List of Abbreviations

SOTRK Sword of the Rightful King – A Novel of King Arthur (2003) by Jane Yolen

HLA Here Lies Arthur (2007) by Philip Reeve

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1 Introduction

But boys will be boys, even the ones who are only girls dressed up: that’s one of the rules of the world. (Reeve 2007, 96)

The portrayal of gender plays a crucial role in children’s literature. As Jule (2008)

writes, “especially for children, images and stories help influence the important

developmental task of understanding what it means to be human, whether male or female”

(36). In other words, the texts children read “inform their understanding of gender” (Salem

2006, 85). Indeed, gender is an often-addressed issue in texts for children and young adults

and the representation of which has altered significantly in the past decades, in which

children’s writers have increasingly “embraced feminist principles in their desire to promote

feminine agency and interrogate normative constructs of gender and sexuality” (Flanagan

2010, 37, 26). Since the 1970s, feminism has had a prominent role in children’s fiction, which

can be seen in the large number of texts produced for children during that time, which aimed

at revealing “the social structures through which patriarchal practices have sought to regulate

women’s bodies and behaviours” (Ibid., 27). Authors increasingly came to depict active and

self-determining girl protagonists instead of passive and marginalized female characters – for

instance, in retellings of traditional fairy tales (Ibid.). “[B]rave, smart, resourceful girl

protagonists”, as Simmons (2009) writes, are indeed rather common in contemporary fiction

for children to the extent that “the portrayal of a traditionally feminine girl may be regarded

by some critics as requiring a word of explanation or apology from the author” (156).

Gender studies in children’s literature, however, recently also have come to increasingly

focus on masculinity and the amendment or reworking of both “masculine and feminine

stereotypes and roles” (Flanagan 2010, 28). As Nodelman (2002) explains, the portrayal of

masculinity has long been overlooked, even though it is similar to “femininity and being

female […] a social construct” (2). Just as girls, boys find themselves under severe pressure to

conform to societal expectations. Pollack (1999) describes how they are confronted with and

influenced by a so-called ‘boy code’, which is an unwritten set of assumptions and

expectations that are culturally constructed and “inculcated into boys by our society – from

the very beginning of a boy’s life” (xxv). According to this code, for instance, “boys should

hide any tender feelings of empathy, aesthetic sensitivity, and vulnerability and express no

emotion but the ‘manly’ one of rage” (Nodelman 2002, 10). The ideals conveyed in this ‘boy

code’, however, are based on a long out-dated model of masculinity (Pollack 1999, xxiv).

Nodelman argues that it is of equal importance to consider the portrayal of male characters in

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children’s books, as it is to investigate representations of femininity, in order to find out

whether the ideals of ‘masculinity’ embodied by them should be maintained or challenged

(Nodelman 2002, 2).

In the past decades, feminist scholars have exposed how texts “express ideas about

women and thus work to shape the femininity of female readers” (Ibid., 1). The study of

masculinity and “[t]he question of how the same patriarchal ideology structured

representations of male bodies and behaviors” had seemed “less urgent” (Stephens 2002, x).

However, as Nodelman (2002) writes, it is “equally important to investigate how books for

children […] help boys and girls, both consciously and unconsciously, to develop a

dangerously repressive sense of what it means to be desirably masculine” (2). Armengol

(2007) elaborates the benefits of studying masculinities: Scholarship on men and masculinities is showing how the analysis of men’s gender issues becomes absolutely essential in order to gain a deeper insight into the social construction, as well as the possible de-construction, of gender relations. […] addressing gender issues, including those that disadvantage women, requires understanding the perceptions and positions of both women and men. (77-8)

Furthermore, as Brod (2011) emphasises, “to equate the study of gender with the study of

women is to leave men as ungendered and thereby to leave men and masculinities

uninterrogated” (31). Hence, studying masculinities, Brod argues, “is a necessary part of the

feminist project” (Ibid., 32). In summary, it can be said that studying masculinities can help to

better understand not only the concept of masculinity but also “the social construction of

gender in general” as well as “the reproduction of gender inequality” (Schrock and Schwalbe

2009, 289).

Childhood is regarded as “the crucial formative period in the life of a human being, the

time for basic education about the nature of the world” (Stephens 1992, 8). Texts produced

for children are particularly powerful, since they play a vital role in “shaping children’s lives”

and in providing them with behavioural models (Webb 2015, 1). Stephens (2009) particularly

emphasises the importance of stories that are being retold for children, stating that they

introduce young readers to “the social, ethical and aesthetic values of the producing culture”

(91). Thus, analysing such stories can be valuable. One such story that has often been retold

for children is the legend of King Arthur, which technically consists of multiple stories that

constitute the Arthurian body of romance, myth and legend. As Wheeler (1992) writes, “[f]ew

heroes dominate their culture as thoroughly as does King Arthur” (1). Indeed, the legends

surrounding the king and his knights are among the best-known stories in the Western world

and have been continuously told and retold over centuries. Especially in Anglophone cultures,

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the legendary King plays a crucial role in literature – for adults and children alike – and is

“the only king we have returned to time and again” (Allen 1988, 8). The legend’s link to

‘masculinity’ also has to be emphasised. Jenkins (1999) explains: Medieval romances, in particular the stories of Arthur and his community of knights, have consistently been the site for the working through of contemporary concerns with masculinity. Indeed, the court of Camelot has epitomized the ideal masculine community […] (81)

A first encounter with Arthur and his knights, as Richmond (2013) writes, “occurs in

childhood”, which is why it is curious that “adults in literary academe rarely focus scholarly

and critical discussions on these texts written and illustrated for children” (55). Indeed, while

the field of Arthurian literature in general is widely researched, scholarly interest in the

Arthurian legend in children’s literature has increased only since the beginning of the twenty-

first century. In 2003, Kellogg described the area of Arthurian children’s literature as

“relatively unexplored” (1), and it was only a year later, that a first “comprehensive overview

and analysis of Arthurian juvenilia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries” was published

with Barbara Lupack as editor (Lupack 2004, xx). Since then, it appears, scholarly interest in

modern children’s Arthuriana has increased greatly, with various articles being published on

this topic. The 2012 Fall issue of the field’s leading journal, Arthuriana, for instance, deals

with the representation of girls and women in modern children’s and young adults’ Arthurian

fiction. This thesis, too, focuses on Arthurian children’s fiction and thus seeks to contribute to

this growing area of interest within the vast field that is Arthurian literature.

Focusing on gender ideology and representations of masculinities in particular, this

thesis provides a comparison of two twenty-first-century Arthurian narratives for children that

offer variations of the legend. According to Thompson (1985), variations – compared to mere

retellings – are adaptations of the Arthurian legends that “go beyond” the information

provided by the sources (11), though their connection to the original texts remains

recognisable (Klaus 2013, 133). Providing an analysis of male characters and their

masculinities, as well as an account of the performance/enactment of such by female

characters, it is the aim of this paper to find out how dominant, hegemonic, gender ideologies

and stereotypes are explicitly or implicitly perpetuated and/or challenged in these Arthurian

novels for young readers, who are influenced and shaped by models of gender they encounter

in literature. The four imperatives of the ‘boy code’, as elaborated by Pollack (1999), serve as

a basis for analysis, with one additional ‘rule’ of traditional masculinity being considered as

well. These ‘rules’ are explained in detail in Chapter Five. The two novels chosen for analysis

are Jane Yolen’s Sword of the Rightful King – A Novel of King Arthur (2003), and Philip

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Reeve’s Here Lies Arthur (2007). Besides offering variations of the Arthurian legends, the

two children’s texts have been selected based on five premises. First, they were published

within an Anglophone context. Second, they were produced in the twenty-first-century, and

therefore offer rather current representations of the Arthurian stories and characters. Third,

King Arthur plays a major part in the plot, though he does not necessarily occupy the role of

the ‘hero’, as can be seen in the analysis. Fourth, the authors received literary acclaim for

their work. The final reason for choosing these two novels is particularly relevant for the

analysis of gender and the study of masculinity: both Yolen’s and Reeve’s protagonists are

‘cross-dressers’ – girls disguised as boys.

This paper is divided into four main parts. Part One, Chapter Two, provides definitions

and historical accounts of the terms ‘ideology’ and ‘gender’, thereby laying the

methodological foundation for this thesis. Part Two, Chapter Three, provides a concise

summary of Arthurian literature through the ages, focusing on trends and developments of the

legend, and on the major authors and works. Considering the vast scope of Arthurian

literature, gaps in this summary are inevitable, but the primary aim is to demonstrate the

continuity of the legend, while emphasising its transformation and adoption of different

values throughout time. The (masculine) concept of chivalry, so dominant in the Middle Ages

– the heyday of Arthurian literature –, is given particular attention. Part Three, Chapter Four,

focuses on the subject of children’s literature and provides the reader with a general

introduction to the field as well as with information on children’s Arthuriana in Britain and

the United States of America. Finally, the selected novels are analysed in Chapter Five. The

basic aim of the analysis is – in Peter Hollindale’s words – “to lift ideology”, in this case the

ideology of masculinity and gender, “‘off the page’ and bring it from obscure and unexpected

places into the light” (1992, 40).

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2 Ideology and Gender: Laying the Foundation for Analysis

As Connell (2005) writes, gender and gender relations “are a major component of social

structure as a whole, and gender politics are among the main determinants of our collective

fate” (76). ‘Gender’ thus is an important system in society. According to Eckert and

McConnel-Ginet (2013), both convention and ideology play an important part in the

maintenance of the gender order (22). Convention, they explain, refers to our customs, the

ways in which we learn how to act and behave, without questioning why (Ibid.). An example

of a convention is that people automatically say ‘Mr. and Mrs. Jones’ instead of the other way

around, without considering that such constructions are rooted in the out-dated belief that

“men should be mentioned before women on the grounds of male superiority” (Ibid.).

Ideology, as the first subchapter of this section aims to demonstrate below, can have different

meanings, but in the context of this thesis refers to “the system of beliefs by which people

explain, account for, and justify their behavior, and interpret and assess that of others” (Ibid.).

Gender ideology, then, can be described as “the set of beliefs that govern people’s

participation in the gender order, and by which they explain and justify that participation”

(Ibid.), i.e. the beliefs and ideas about what it means, or should mean, to be a man or a

woman.

Gender ideology is crucial in regard to the “distribution of power among individuals in

a society” (Parsons 2011, 113). It is also closely tied to gender role ideology. As Kroska

(2010) explains, both “refer to attitudes regarding the appropriate roles, rights, and

responsibilities of women and men in society” and traditionally stress “the value of distinctive

roles for women and men” (249). Gender ideology can be regarded as a variable, a continuum

of various ideologies, ranging “from traditional, conservative, or anti-feminist to egalitarian,

liberal, or feminist”, but it can also be viewed as a fixed set of beliefs, that promote and

legitimise gender inequality (Ibid.). Common features of the dominant gender ideology in

Western industrial society include, for instance, the following examples: […] men are strong, women are weak; men are brave, women are timid; men are aggressive, women are passive; men are sex-driven, women are relationship-driven; men are impassive, women are emotional; men are rational, women are irrational; men are direct, women are indirect; men are competitive, women are cooperative; men are practical, women are nurturing; men are rough, women are gentle. (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2013, 23)

The aim of the following subchapters is to provide the reader with the definition(s) and

history of the terms ‘ideology’ and ‘gender’. The information given below lays the foundation

for the analysis in the main part of this paper.

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2.1 Ideology: From the French Revolution to Children’s Lit Criticism

The term ‘ideology’ has Greek roots, but as Parsons (2011) explains, “derives from the

French ideologie”, a concept which was developed in France during the period of

Enlightenment (113). Originally meaning “the study or knowledge of ideas”, the term was

coined in the late eighteenth century by Antoine Destutt de Tracy, a French revolutionary

aristocrat, during his imprisonment, and reflected his belief in reason as “the key to social

reconstruction” (Eagleton 2013, 1-2). An ideologist, as Eagleton (1991) explains, “was

initially a philosopher intent on revealing the material basis of our thought” (31). Over time,

however, the term ‘ideology’ came to bear different meanings and associations and scholars

such as Karl Marx and Louis Althusser adapted the concept for their purposes. Explanations

for the term vary and indeed, even to this day, “[n]o single conception of ideology […] has

commanded universal assent from those at work in this field” to the extent that Eagleton

(2013) suggests that “there are almost as many theories of ideology as there are theorists of it”

(Eagleton 2013, 14). In addition, the word ‘ideology’ frequently evokes negative connotations

today: To claim in ordinary conversation that someone is speaking ideologically is surely to hold that they are judging a particular issue through some rigid framework of preconceived ideas which distorts their understanding. (Eagleton 1991, 3)

However, generally it can be said that ‘ideology’ refers to “the system of ideas that

define a culture” (Parsons 2011, 113), including: […] the larger scale of political, cultural, and economic ideas like democracy, Christianity, capitalism and individualism that dominate the Western world, but also the more intimate identity politics within a culture, in particular those that surround gender, sexuality, race, and class and that effect the distribution of power among individuals in a society. (Ibid.)

As Parsons further explains, “[a]ll cultures have ideologies” and “[a]ll things produced in a

culture are expressions” thereof (Ibid.). Numerous scholars have argued that, in fact, “all

language is ideological”, and that thus, in turn, “all writing is ideological” (Sarland 2004, 57).

Consequently, texts produced for children, too, are shaped by ideology, which, according to

Hollindale (1992) is “an inevitable, untameable and largely uncontrollable factor in the

transaction between books and children” (27). Stephens (1992) also points out the ideological

assumptions that are inscribed in children’s texts, “sometimes obtrusively and sometimes

invisibly” (2). An ideological analysis is less interested in the aesthetic qualities of a literary

work, but instead focuses on “the embedded ideological messages of the narrative” as well as

on “the ways in which a story positions the reader to accept a set of values” (Parsons 2011,

115). The aim is, as Sarland (2004) explains, “to deconstruct the work in order to expose its

underlying ideological nature” (65).

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Peter Hollindale (1992), in his influential essay that was first published in 1988,

distinguishes three categories, or levels, of ideology in books for children. The first level can

be regarded as the overt ideology of a children’s book, as it relates to the “explicit social,

political or moral beliefs of the individual writer and his wish to recommend them to the

children through the story” (Hollindale 1992, 27). This explicit ideology is usually easily

identified, since it is “the most conspicuous element in the ideology of children’s books”

(Ibid., 28). However, it is also less powerful. The second level can be called subconscious, or

passive ideology, and concerns an “individual writer’s unexamined assumptions”, which they

have internalised and thus take for granted (Ibid., 30). Passive ideology is more powerful,

since it is ‘invisible’ and thus “invested with legitimacy through the implication that things

are simply ‘so’” (Stephens 1992, 9). The ideologies inscribed in a work on these first two

levels may contradict each other. The third level, according to Hollindale, is the ideology that

is contained within our language, i.e. “within the words, the rule-systems, and codes which

constitute the text” (Hollindale 1992, 32). Stephens (1992) agrees with this opinion: A narrative without an ideology is unthinkable: ideology is formulated in and by language, meanings within language are socially determined, and narratives are constructed out of language. (Stephens 1992, 8)

Eagleton (1991), however, claims that ideology concerns “‘discourse’ rather than ‘language’”,

and that the context in which language is used is just as important (9). He explains: Ideology is less a matter of the inherent linguistic properties of a pronouncement than a question of who is saying what to whom for what purposes. This isn’t to deny that there are particular ideological ‘idioms’: the language of fascism, for example. […] The general point, then, is that exactly the same piece of language may be ideological in one context and not in another […] (Ibid.)

2.2 Gender: A Social, Cultural and Historical Construct

Gender – Term denoting the cultural constitution of notions concerning femininity or masculinity and the ways in which these serve ideologically to maintain gendered identities. (Wolfreys, Robbins and Womack 2006, 45)

As Glover and Kaplan (2009) write, the term ‘gender’ has come to be “one of the

busiest, most restless terms in the English language”, one “that crops up everywhere”, and yet

is rather difficult to define (1). Crucial to the definition of ‘gender’ is its distinction from sex.

The difference between sex and gender, as Talbot (2010) explains, lies in the (fairly recent)

recognition that “sex is biologically founded, whereas gender is learned behaviour”, it is

socially constructed (7). Thus, while the categories of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are founded on

“differences in reproductive anatomy” (Schrock and Schwalbe 2009, 279), the concepts of

‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ refer to the behaviour and traits commonly ascribed to – and

also taught to – each sex. The dominant ideology concerning gender, as Eckert and

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McConnel-Ginet (2013) write, “does not simply prescribe that male and female should be

different – it insists that they simply are different” (23). These differences, dominant ideology

purports, can be attributed “to an unchanging essential quality of males and females”, a view

generally called essentialism (Ibid.) Masculinity and femininity have long been viewed as

binary concepts and were organized as “polarized and hierarchical opposites”, with each

being “tied to particular bodies” (Harper 2007, 510-1). Current sociological theory, however,

as Schrock and Schwalbe (2009) write, regards gender “as the name we give to cultural

practices that construct women and men as different and that advantage men at the expense of

women” (Schrock and Schwalbe 2009, 278; my emphasis).

Gender can also be understood in terms of performance, an idea that is particularly

relevant for the analysis in this thesis. The notion of gender performativity was developed by

Judith Butler in 1990 and suggests that gender is performed; that it is “something that we ‘do’

rather than ‘are’” (Mallan 2009, 5): [R]ather than being natural or innate, gender is actually a series of stylized acts and behaviours that are repeated until they give the illusion of authenticity. (Flanagan 2010, 32).

These acts, as Cameron (1997) explains, are “in accordance with the cultural norms […]

which define ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’” (49) and thus – just as these cultural norms

defining them – are open to change (Harper 2007, 510). Consequently, ‘masculinity’ and

‘femininity’ should also be regarded as not being limited to men – in the case of masculinity –

and women – in the case of femininity. Gender as a social practice is not “reduced to the

body”, as Connell (2005) explains (71). Halberstam (1998), too, in discussing female

masculinity, argues that “scholars must separate discussions of gender identity […] from

discussions of the body”, since females can enact masculinity, and males can enact femininity

(Lind 2010, 222). Female characters enacting, or performing, masculinity, and male

characters enacting femininity, have indeed been widely used in literary texts – both historical

and contemporary (Harper 2007, 510). These performances, as Harper (2007) writes, “may or

may not be simple imitations of conventional or traditional masculinity” or femininity,

respectively (Ibid.).

As social constructs, masculinity and femininity are “context-specific and culture-

bound” (Armengol 2007, 77). They are also historically constructed, since gender and gender

relations have been (trans)formed over time (Connell 2005, 82). Originally, and as early as

the fifth century, the term ‘gender’ – deriving from the Latin word genus (race, kind) – was

used to differentiate “between types – especially those of people and words” (Hateley 2011,

86). Historically speaking, gender thus has always been “a tool of negotiation between our

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understandings of bodies” (Ibid.). According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first

recorded usage of the term ‘gender’ as referring to the biological categories of male/female

occurred in the year 1474 (OED). It was only in the mid-twentieth century, that ‘gender’ came

to denote “[t]he state of being male or female as expressed by social or cultural distinctions

and differences, rather than biological ones” (Ibid.). Around two hundred years before, in the

eighteenth century, a “public politics of gender and sexuality” had first emerged (Connell

2005, 83). Before that time, research suggests, females and males were not regarded as

standing in opposition to each other in terms of character type (Ibid., 68). Connell (2005)

elaborates: Women were certainly regarded as different from men, but different in the sense of being incomplete or inferior examples of the same character (for instance, having less of the faculty of reason). (Ibid.)

Glover and Kaplan (2009) further explain that “[u]ntil at least the middle of the eighteenth

century the human body was conceived as being of one flesh; in other words, as consisting of

a single, yet capacious sex” (5).

Indeed, contemporary ‘gender order’ has developed over a time span of roughly four

centuries, the starting point being located between 1450 and 1650, with the rise of “the

modern capitalist economy” in the region of the North Atlantic being regarded as decisive in

this development (Connell 2005, 185). Factors that contributed to the gradual emergence of a

‘gender order’ include “new understandings of sexuality and personhood in metropolitan

Europe”, as well as the growth of urban centres, such as London and Amsterdam, which

brought about “a new setting for everyday life” (Ibid., 186-7). Another key reason was the

establishment of overseas empires (Ibid., 187). Connell (2005) emphasises the connection of

the rise of imperialism to the development of ‘masculinity’, suggesting that “[e]mpire was a

gendered enterprise from the start”, referring to the fact that women entering the colonies

came in the roles of “wives and servants within households controlled by men” (Ibid., 186).

The colonial frontiers, Connell writes, were indeed the first place where a kind of masculinity

emerged, with the men applying force there being “perhaps the first group to become defined

as a masculine cultural type in the modern sense” (Ibid.). Referring to legendary heroes, such

as Davy Crocket in the United States, Connell argues that it was the men of the frontier that

have largely been regarded as “[e]xemplars of masculinity” (Ibid., 185). The changes

occurring in the ‘long sixteenth-century’ became noticeable in the following two centuries,

and by the eighteenth century, ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ had come to be defined as

standing in opposition to each other (Ibid.).

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In the nineteenth century, gender politics in the English-speaking world were guided by

the doctrine, or ideology, of ‘separate spheres’. This ideology “maintained that women were

naturally suited to the family and private realm of the hearth and home, while men were

naturally suited to the working world and the public domain” (Boles and Hoeveler 2004, 5).

Males and females, this doctrine suggested, were “naturally complementary in their roles and

functions, rather than in competition with each other” – consequently, each sex was regarded

to occupy a “separate, but complementary” sphere (Ibid.). The women’s sphere, however, was

secondary to the men’s (Connell 2005, 195). Reinforcement of this ideology in the United

States, for example, can be seen in a decision of the Supreme Court in 1873, which prohibited

women from practising law (Boles and Hoeveler 2004, 62). As Boles and Hoeveler (2004)

explain, there were a large number of other, similar decisions, aimed at upholding the

ideology of ‘separate spheres’, and limiting rights and possibilities for females (Ibid.).

Consequently, the first women’s movement began, which is today referred to as First Wave

Feminism. This “worldwide campaign for women’s rights waged in the 19th and 20th

centuries”, and demanded, amongst other things, female suffrage, which was finally adopted

by the majority of countries by the late 1930s (Ibid., 139).

In the interwar years of the early twentieth century, fascism was on the rise in Europe.

This ideology was, as Connell (2005) describes, “a naked reassertion of male supremacy in

societies that had been moving toward equality for women” through the promotion of a new

ideal of masculinity, which glorified irrationality and violence (193). After the Second World

War, the establishment of various institutions, such as the United Nations, again started to

promote equal rights for women (Tandon 2008, 9). The UN set up the Universal Declaration

of Human Rights in 1948, protecting the equal rights of men and women and addressing

issues of inequality (Ibid.). In the following year, Simone de Beauvoir published her

influential book Le Deuxieme Sex (The Second Sex), in which she discussed women’s status

of inferiority, and how females are “always perceived of as ‘other’” (Ibid., 10). The women’s

rights movement was revived in the late 1960s as part of other movements taking place in

regard to “international peace, racial equality, student power, and social politics” (Boles and

Hoeveler 2004, 287). This second wave of feminism, which lasted until the 1980s, focused

primarily on the inequality of laws, and especially on the issues of contraception and birth

control, hoping that control over reproduction would lead to “full economic independence

from men” (Tandon 2008, 1, 8-9). Feminists of this second wave also “attacked what they

called ‘sexist-ideology’” (Ibid., 24). This second movement, it can be said, was an affirmation

of women’s strength and independence. Starting in the 1980s, a third wave of the feminist

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movement emerged, which concentrated on the inclusion of women of colour and poor

women, and aimed at tackling the problems left unresolved by the previous generations of

feminists (Boles and Hoeveler 2004, 318). It also brought about a ‘rejection of the rejection’

of femininity, with women using their femininity as tool of empowerment. As Connell (2000)

writes, “the new feminism of the 1970s not only gave voice to women’s concerns, it

challenged all assumptions about the gender system and raised a series of problems about

men” (3). Consequently, gender studies increasingly came to include the issues of men, and

masculinity studies emerged as an important addition to the field.

As Horlacher (2011) explains, the study of masculinities so far “has gone through two

distinct stages” (10). The 1980s can be defined as the first stage. This decade is generally

regarded as the time period in which the study of masculinities first became prominent, or, in

which it first “entered the mainstream” – though research regarding “the ‘male sex role’ and

masculinity as a singular trait” had been carried out in the fields of sociology and psychology

before that time (Schrock and Schwalbe 2009, 277). In the first stage of masculinities studies,

“masculinity was taken to be a singular, monolithic phenomenon” (Horlacher 2011, 10). The

1990s can be regarded as the period in which work on masculinities truly flourished. It was

also in this decade, that research on masculinities started to become important in the fields of

culture and literature as well, resulting in an increase in the analysis of “fictional

representations of masculinity”, with the aim “to better understand its social construction”

(Armengol 2007, 78). As Horlacher (2011) observes, this literary analysis focused mainly on

works produced in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (11). More recently, a second phase

in the study of masculinities has begun, in which ‘masculinity’ is no longer seen as singular,

but is “understood as plurality” (Schrock and Schwalbe 2009, 280).

Generally, it can be said, that in recent years, gender identity has increasingly come to

be recognised as being plural, with masculinity and femininity now being regarded “as

relational, rather than oppositional” categories (Flanagan 2010, 30). Gender identity, and thus

masculinities and femininities, Lind (2010) writes, should be recognised as “fluid, wide-

ranging, and historically and geographically differentiated” (222). This is an important factor

to consider, particularly when dealing with children’s literature. Children need to be

encouraged “to see masculinity and femininity not as inherently binaristic and oppositional,

but as relational and fluid” (Flanagan 2010, 37). In order to do this, writers, readers and critics

alike need to become aware of how texts embrace or challenge dominant gender ideologies

(Ibid.). As can be seen in the information provided above, the gender system, and hence also

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the concepts of ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’, are historically constructed and thus have

carried different meanings over time. The following chapter focuses on the Arthurian legend

and literature. Similarly to the gender order, the stories surrounding King Arthur have

changed throughout time. The chivalric – essentially masculine – ideal, however, it appears,

has largely remained at the core of the legend.

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3 Arthurian Literature Through the Ages: An Overview

As Archibald and Putter (2009) write, “[t]he evergreen popularity of Arthurian legend

across Europe for over a thousand years makes it very hard to cover it comprehensively in a

single book” (2). Thus, it is also quite impossible to include such an extensive history in a

Master’s Thesis. The overview in this chapter therefore cannot and should not be considered

as complete. It merely serves as a basic and by implication rather simplified introduction to

the vast field of Arthurian legend and literature. Special emphasis in this chapter is given to

how the legends have been used throughout the ages to portray the values and ideologies that

fit the period of time, and how common (male) concerns, opinions and ideals influenced and

were influenced by the stories of King Arthur and his knights. The Arthurian legend, as this

chapter should demonstrate, provided – and continues to provide – authors with the

opportunity to give its materials “political, religious and social interpretations for the

expression of contemporary public or private meanings” (Taylor and Brewer 1983, 6). Indeed,

as Archibald and Putter (2009) write, “[t]he Arthurian legend’s ‘food for storytellers’ offers

not only entertainment but also social and political comment on both past and present” (11).

Scholarly treatment of the Arthurian legends frequently starts with considering the

question of whether there was a ‘historical’ Arthur or not. Surrounding this question is an

ongoing debate that proves difficult to settle. There are two main problems with ascertaining

Arthur’s existence, namely the “abysmal lack of historical evidence” from the early fifth to

the late sixth century and the unreliability of the few written historical sources that did survive

(Bruce 1999, 36). It is also not clear in what time period the ‘real’ Arthur lived. However, as

Archibald and Putter (2009) write, “[t]he earliest sources associate him with the shadowy

period around 500, when the Romans who had earlier colonised Britain withdrew” (3). Reno

(2010) distinguishes between two different Arthurs – a historic one of the second or the fifth

century, and a legendary one from the eleventh and twelfth centuries (30). Bruce (1999)

further points out an important issue, stating that “it must be considered that ‘Arthur’ may be

multiple people […], fused through legend and hazy history, into a single character” (37).

This chapter does not seek to investigate the historicity of Arthur and the historical accuracy

of the stories, but to provide an overview of the literary developments of the legend.

Concerning the questions, ‘Who was Arthur?’ and ‘Did he exist?’. Geoffrey Ashe’s works,

most notably The Discovery of King Arthur (1985, updated in 2003), provide further

information.

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3.1 Mythology and ‘History’: The Origins of the Legend

The early sources of the Arthurian legend can be divided into historical, or rather quasi-

historical, works by clerics – chronicles written in Latin; the folkloric material of Welsh

legend and mythology, consisting of tales and poems; as well as the various (Latin) accounts

of Welsh saints. The list of (pseudo)historical sources connected to Arthur usually begins with

Gildas’ religious treatise De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (On the Destruction and

Conquest of Britain), which was written in the mid-sixth century. Despite the fact that this

source – which was, as Lupack (2007) states, “not intended as history” (14) – does not

actually mention Arthur, it is important in the Arthurian context, since it refers to the Battle at

Badon and the Roman-British nobleman Ambrosius Aurelianus, both of which are connected

to Arthur in later documents. The first source that mentions Arthur’s name is not another

chronicle, but a poem called Y Gododdin, which can be dated back to the early 600s (Ibid.).

The reference to Arthur is small but significant, as it is written that “although an important

Celtic hero named Gwawrddur killed a great many enemies in battle, ‘he was no Arthur’”

(Reno 2010, 30).

The first chronicle to mention Arthur and to describe him in more detail was the

Historia Brittonum (History of Britain), an early-ninth-century text, probably authored by a

monk with the name of Nennius (Ashe 1995, 2). The Historia Brittonum lists twelve battles in

which Arthur defeated the Saxons as dux bellorum, battle leader. This list of battles is in fact,

as Lupack (2007) states, “a classic passage in Arthurian literature” and has influenced a large

number of later works (15). Scholars have pointed out various chronological issues (amongst

others) in Nennius’s list of battles and that the basis for it might have been an earlier

(unknown) Welsh poem (Ashe 1995, 2). Ashe (1995) further notes that starting with

Nennius’s Historia, fact and legend began to fuse, referring to a passage in which Arthur

single-handedly killed nine-hundred-and-sixty of his enemies (Ibid., 3). He suggests that the

same legend-making process probably happened in another historical source, the Annales

Cambriae (Annals of Wales) from the 10th century (Ibid.).

Nennius rather abruptly ends his narrative of Arthur and does not provide the reader

with an account of his fate. However, in an appendix he “describes several mirabilia

(‘miracles’) of Britain”, two of which deal with Arthur: one is the tomb of Arthur’s son, Amr,

whom he had killed, and the other a stone with a footprint of Cabal, Arthur’s dog, which he

left while they hunted for the boar Trwch Trwyth (Bruce 1999, 37). The content of this

appendix further strengthens the view that earlier works of Welsh tradition probably

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influenced the author of the Historia Brittonum. As Bruce (1999) explains, “[b]oth Amr and

Troynt (Twrch Trwyth) appear in Welsh Arthurian legends and reflect elements of the early

legendary tradition about Arthur” (Ibid.). This legendary tradition is part of the second group

of early sources that relate to King Arthur.

As Bruce (1999) writes, while Nennius and other chroniclers “were attempting to write

authentic histories, the Welsh were building a body of legendary tradition about King

Arthur”, consisting of verse and prose tales (38). The majority of early legendary narratives

are lost, but a small number remains. One such narrative is the poem Preiddeu Annwn (The

Spoils of Annwn), dated between the ninth and twelfth century and found in the Book of

Taliesin, which is “[t]he earliest existing example of Welsh legend” (Ibid.). It recounts

Arthur’s attack on the Celtic otherworld, Annwn (Ashe 2003, 143). Another particularly

important source of Welsh verse are the Triads (Trioedd Ynys Prydein), written around the

eleventh or twelfth century, which can be described as “[t]he most substantial body of

folkloric material surrounding the figure of Arthur” (Johnson 2014, 95). Bruce (1999) writes

that some of the material contained in the Triads might have been taken from Geoffrey of

Monmouth’s work, introduced in the subsequent subchapter, but he also emphasises that the

majority refers to earlier sources (38).

Regarding Welsh prose tales, Culhwch ac Olwen (Culhwch and Olwen), believed to be

written around 1100, is the only pre-Galfridian tale that has survived complete (Lupack 2007,

16). It is included in the Mabinogion, which comprises several Welsh tales that were first

translated by Lady Charlotte Guest from 1838-49 (Ibid.). Through her act of assembling these

stories under the term of Mabinogion – a title which is regarded by scholars as unfitting for

the collection – Lady Charlotte Guest has made Welsh mythology accessible to the English-

speaking world (Ibid.). However, at the same time, Guest left out the darker elements in her

translation since she regarded children as her main audience (Pugh and Weisl 2013, 48). As

Hutton (2009) explains, Arthur is portrayed in Culhwch ac Olwen as “the supreme warlord of

all Britain, with a retinue of heroes ready to go on quests and to take on superhuman foes and

magicians” (23). Breudwyt Rhonabwy (The Dream of Rhonabwy) and The Birth of Arthur are

two more surviving prose tales from Welsh mythology, though both post-date Geoffrey’s

Historia and already show influence by works outside the Welsh tradition (Ibid., 17).

The accounts of Welsh saints, written in Latin, are also important early sources

concerning the Arthurian legend, and largely portray a different picture of Arthur. Their

depiction of Arthur is, as Lupack (2007) describes, “sometimes at odds with the heroic image

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found in many of the chronicles and romances”, as he is frequently portrayed as an antagonist

to the saint or the Church (22-3). As Ashe (1997) explains, in these accounts Arthur is either

described as king of Britain or as a war-lord and tyrant (Ashe 1997, 8-9). The Legenda sancti

Goeznovii (Legend of St Goeznovius), according to the manuscript written in 1019, contains

what is probably “the earliest depiction of Arthur in a saint’s life” and one of the few saints’

accounts that do not portray him as a tyrant (Lupack 2007, 22). It is also the only early

historical document in which Arthur is depicted in a believable, non-mythical way (Lacy and

Ashe 1988 cited in: Bruce 1999, 38).

The various (quasi)historical and literary documents outlined in this subchapter dealing

with the origins of the Arthurian legend diverge to different extents in their portrayal of

Arthur. The historic tradition, as Bruce (1999) notes, depicts Arthur as ‘British National

Hero’, fighting against the Saxons, while he is a ‘Petty, Lecherous Tyrant’ in most of the

accounts of Welsh Saints’ Lives (42-3). In Welsh folklore he is again presented differently,

namely as ‘Mythological Emperor’, governing “a kingdom of Celtic fantasy” (Ibid.).

Particularly the Welsh legends are characterized by blood, sweat and tears; by magnificent palaces, fearsome beasts, mysterious otherworlds, supernatural occurrences, hags and giants and sorcerers, bloody battles, and Arthur presiding over all as an “emperor.” (Ibid., 38)

The most common contrast in Arthur’s literary portrayal, however, is the division into

chronicle and romance tradition, which lies at the heart of the subsequent subchapter that

focuses on the two ‘fathers’ of Arthurian literary tradition: Geoffrey of Monmouth and

Chrétien de Troyes.

3.2 Fathers of Arthurian Lit: The Chronicle and Romance Tradition

Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, produced around 1136 or 1138,

can be regarded as “one of the great books of the Middle Ages” (Ashe 2003, 4) and a

milestone in the development of the Arthurian legend. Geoffrey was a cleric and probably

also a teacher in Oxford – though the university did not exist yet at the time –, where he

completed his Historia (Ibid.), telling the story of Arthur “as it was known in South Wales”

(MacCulloch 2004, 184). What is interesting about the Historia is that Geoffrey wanted to

convince his readers that his work is merely a Latin translation of “a much older book” (Ashe

2003, 66). MacCulloch (2004) states that Geoffrey may have obtained “some information

from a book in the British tongue, and some from Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford”, but that he

most likely has drawn mainly on “floating traditions” (185). Ashe (1997) also points out that

Geoffrey has used certain ideas and characters from Welsh legend and early sources, thereby

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creating – amongst others – one of the most significant figures of the legend: Merlin (Ashe

1997, 8-9). Geoffrey was also the first to hint at the fact that Arthur is not dead, but had been

carried to Avalon to be healed from his wounds. However, Ashe (2003) also states that it is

highly unlikely that the Historia is merely a translation of an ‘ancient book’, since it includes

“far too many fanciful details belonging to a twelfth-century milieu” (66-7).

Leaving aside the fact that Geoffrey’s Historia is more story than history, it has to be

recognised as the essential Arthurian literary work – a work that has been the basis for

multitudinous accounts of the Arthurian myth that were to follow. As Dom (2013) writes,

“[w]hatever the origin of Geoffrey’s text, it became a best-seller in its own time, and for

centuries to follow”, and it was through his work that “the Arthurian legend entered the

mainstream literature of the medieval world” (33). With his Historia, Geoffrey’s aim was to

present Arthur “as an emperor-hero, whilst providing Britain with a ‘golden age’ to celebrate”

(Bryden 2005, 35). Geoffrey’s Arthur is an “all-conquering warrior”, who, in Geoffrey’s eyes,

“represented the last great period in British history” (Archibald and Putter 2009, 9). In his

Historia Geoffrey of Monmouth presents “[o]ne of the most emphatically militant versions of

Arthur” (Wheeler 1992, 9). Indeed, as Saul (2011) observes, the Arthurian ‘world’ that the

medieval chronicler created, was “violent and masculine”, with Arthur “constantly waging

war, ravaging the countryside and slaughtering his enemies” (43). Geoffrey paid virtually no

attention to “the emotional life of his characters” and also not to women and individual

knights (Ibid.:43-4). Not long after the publication of the Historia, however, this situation

would change, and the legend would take on new merits as the romance tradition began to

flourish on the continent, with the ideals of chivalry lying at the heart of it.

Before this significant period in Arthurian literature, however, Geoffrey’s work was

translated into French verse by Robert Wace in his Roman De Brut (1155). In his translation,

Wace makes Arthur less ruthless, focussing on the king’s wife’s beauty and manners and

introducing what became one of the most significant elements of the Arthurian legend: the

Round Table (Putter 2009, 43). Around 1200, a village priest named Layamon translated

Wace’s work into English (Ibid.). Even though both versions contain new details, their

authors “did not take great liberties with the story they inherited”, since both believed that in

his account of Arthur Geoffrey of Monmouth had adhered to the truth (Ibid.). The belief or

disbelief in the historical accuracy of the Historia certainly influenced authors dealing with

the legendary king. As Putter (2009) writes, “[i]t needed a writer who felt no obligations to

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history to change the face of Arthurian literature: that writer was Chrétien de Troyes” (Ibid.,

44).

Less than three decades after Geoffrey’s Historia, Arthurian romances started to emerge

in France, depicting a completely altered King Arthur, who now takes the role of the ‘Passive

Patriarch’ (Bruce 1999, 42). Arthur no longer is a successful warrior and central figure in the

romances, but a marginalised, “surprisingly passive and ineffective king who stays at court

while his knights have adventures and show their prowess” (Archibald and Putter 2009, 9).

Bruce (1999) describes this Arthur as “impotent, confused, and self-absorbed, sitting in the

background”, but nevertheless still respected (42). The father of this new literary Arthur is

Chrétien de Troyes, who introduced this rather negative portrayal of the legendary king in the

twelfth century (Ibid., 10). The altered portrayal and marginalisation of Arthur permitted the

stories to be focussed on the concepts of romance: courtly love, chivalry and honour (Bryden

2005, 12), reflected in the adventures of the individual knights, in which they “discover the

secrets of their own destiny” (Putter 2009, 45). One major reason for this shift in Arthur’s

portrayal – besides Chrétien’s already-mentioned disbelief in the historical accuracy of

Geoffrey’s account – might be the intended audience of French Arthurian romance. As

Archibald (2009a) states, the romances “were written not for the king but for powerful

nobles”, which is why Arthur is usually not presented as “a dynamic, astute or effective

monarch” (139). Archibald further poses the question whether Chrétien’s altered Arthur

already seems to present “a critical attitude towards the legend” (Ibid., 140). Chrétien de

Troyes is not only the father of the romance tradition, but also of a character that was to

become a key figure in Arthurian literature, namely Sir Lancelot. He further introduced the

Grail as an essential element, a theme on which the German writer Wolfram von Eschenbach

elaborated on in his influential work Parzival (Taylor 2009, 57).

In the thirteenth century, the centre of Arthurian romance was France, with the genre

flourishing so much that Taylor (2009) even argues that this period was “richer by far, more

inventive, more exuberant” than the twelfth century, which is commonly seen “as the heyday

of romance” (58, 66). Thirteenth-century Arthurian writers produced both verse and prose,

combining romance and chronicle tradition and “absorbing them into a coherent model of

romance-history” (Archibald and Putter 2009, 5). According to Taylor (2009) coherence –

both to narrative and ideology – is an essential keyword, which is reflected in the influential

works collectively known as the Vulgate Cycle and the Post-Vulgate Cycle (Taylor 2009, 62).

In these French prose cycles, Arthur is depicted as ‘Human High King’, i.e. as “a far more

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human character”, a man of noble deeds, but also of obvious flaws and failings (Bruce 1999,

42). In a number of texts, such as the Post-Vulgate Merlin, he is also shown as ‘Daring Young

Warrior’, regaining his role as protagonist and experiencing his own adventures (Ibid.).

However, while a number of medieval authors wrote Arthurian romances, it can be argued,

that “Chrétien was perhaps the ablest and most significant” of them all (Saul 2011, 44).

3.3 “The Chivalric Sense of Masculinity”: Chivalry in the Medieval Romance

Johnston (2011) explains the ‘romance’ genre, so prominent in the Middle Ages and so

important to the Arthurian tradition: ‘Romance’ in the medievalist’s sense means a chivalric narrative of heterosexual love and adventure that often features some – but not too much – magic and not infrequently portrays a significant development in the male hero’s character. An element of maturity may be induced by his undergoing hardships and is sometimes connected to his learning the ethic of courtly society and developing a specifically chivalric sense of masculinity (52)

As can be seen, chivalry plays an integral part in the romance genre. Deriving from the

French term chevalerie, meaning ‘exploits on horseback’ (Burland and Burland 2009, 133),

chivalry can be defined as “[a]n idealized set of behaviors for mounted warriors, and by

extension for all noble men” (Bouchard 2006, 128). By implication, thus, chivalry is linked to

class. Indeed, as Johnston (2011) writes, the people interacting in chivalric romances are

usually part of the aristocracy, which entails that “economic issues or questions pertaining to

daily life remain invisible” (52). Originally, the meaning of chivalry was largely military, as

Bouchard (2006) explains: Originally the word chevalerie simply meant battlefield virtues: being a good fighter, brave, and loyal to one’s fellows. A warrior on horseback (mounted on a cheval, or horse) was a knight (chevalier) and should, it was assumed, practice chivalry. (128)

It was in the twelfth century – the period when Arthurian romances first started to be written –

that the definition of chivalry changed and, besides military strength, came to include “ethical

personal conduct, especially toward women” (Burland and Burland 2009, 131). Courtesy, i.e.

“suitable behavior for someone at court”, became essentially linked to the ideal of chivalry

(Bouchard 2006, 128).

Though sometimes mistakenly regarded as a specific ‘code’, chivalry does not denote “a

clear set of guidelines that everyone recognized”, but rather refers to a “more or less explicit

set of expectations” (Ibid.). However, even these expectations, it can be said, “were inherently

contradictory”, so that virtually no man would be able to meet all of them (Ibid.). The set of

behavioural expectations, as Burland and Burland (2009) write, includes: […] skill and bravery in battle (‘prowess’), personal responsibility and dignity (‘honor’), and a reverent and protective stance toward women, translated into direct action to help a woman in need or in danger (‘service’). (132)

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Referring to the impossibility of meeting all of the above-mentioned expectations, Bouchard

(2006) points out, that “[u]nsurprisingly, warrior violence and restrained good manners

mingled uncomfortably”, and that in reality “no one could at the same time be a ferocious

fighter, a gentle wooer of ladies, and a deeply religious man” (128-9). This inherent

contradiction led a number of medieval authors to criticise the idea of chivalry in their works

“rather than simply glorifying it” (Ibid., 129). Towards the end of the Middle Ages a number

of treatises attempted to establish a well-defined set of guidelines, which, however, still did

not yield a singular definition of what chivalry should comprise (Ibid.).

As Burland and Burland (2009) observe, “chivalry as a collective ideal has been closely

associated with issues of gender and power” (133). In the Middle Ages, ‘femininity’ and

‘masculinity’ referred to gender expectations, i.e. “the social and cultural behavioral norms

for men and women” (Murray 2006, 284). These norms, however, varied. Gender

expectations were closely linked to class, and in the case of men, also to religious status

(Ibid.). Therefore, for instance, a man/woman from the upper class was expected to behave

differently than a man/woman from a lower class. The ideal of chivalry has traditionally

denoted “an entirely masculine sphere of operations”, a fact that can still be noticed today

(Burland and Burland 2009, 133). In contemporary society, a man is described as ‘chivalrous’

when, for instance, he opens a door for a woman (Ibid., 132). At the same time, however, a

“woman performing the same actions might be praised as ‘considerate’ or even ‘courteous,’

but not as ‘chivalrous’” (Ibid., 132-3; my emphasis).

In medieval romance, as Crane (1994) argues, “the masculine stands for the universal

experience”, while gender difference is used “to establish masculine identity” (56): Not only does heterosexual courtship become an important arena for self-definition, romances elaborate a range of distinctions between men’s and women’s social comportment, duties, and rights that gender the concept of identity […] (Ibid., 17)

Interestingly, at the same time, in medieval romance, the masculine ideal of chivalry included

an incorporation of feminine features into the hero’s character (Johnston 2011, 52).

“Difference from woman does not”, as Crane (1994) explains, “paradoxically, exile from man

all traits associated with the feminine” (17): Traits marked feminine can easily be integrated into masculine behavior, but the current does not run in reverse from masculine into feminine identity, and the complications of masculine behavior that femininity figures contribute to enlarging and universalizing rather than femininizing the masculine experience. (Ibid., 21)

There are also differences between French and English romances in regard to the

‘femininisation’ of hero characters, in that the English romances “tend to be decidedly less

courtly” and also “less feminine” (Johnston 2011, 52). As Burland and Burland (2009) write,

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“[c]hivalry as a collective ideal continued to dominate the literary and social culture of the

late Middle Ages and beyond (14th to 16th centuries)” (134). Towards the end of the

fourteenth century, as the flourishing of Arthurian romances came to an end at the continent,

it started to grow slowly, but surely in England, with the poem Sir Gawain and the Green

Knight generally being described as the most significant contribution to the Arthurian literary

tradition in Middle English (Burrow 2009, 79). It would take about seven decades, however,

for the essential English Arthurian romance to be produced.

3.4 Return From the Continent: Malory’s Morte

In the fifteenth century, as Windeatt (2009) writes, “to read about Arthur and the Round

Table was to encounter an ideal, and the court of King Arthur provided an imagined model

for courtly life and conduct” (100). This view of Arthur’s court is reflected in what can be

described as one of the most important Arthurian works in history: Sir Thomas Malory’s Le

Morte Darthur, written around 1469-70 and published in 1485. In his influential work Malory

combines elements of both chronicle and romance tradition and draws on several sources –

the Vulgate Cycle and the Post-Vulgate Cycle amongst others. Malory – who was a knight

himself and imprisoned at least for some time during his writing of the Morte – provides

readers with an extensive account of “the rise and fall of Arthur’s kingdom” (McCarthy 1988,

3), though Arthur himself only appears in half of the eight tales, remaining in the background

in the central stories (Kennedy 1996b, 149). Echoing the “gentry culture […] as well as the

turmoil of the Wars of the Roses” (Archibald 2009b, 323), the Morte was first published by

William Caxton, who in the preface to this first edition confirms Arthur’s historicity, naming

him as one of the three Christian worthies – Charlemagne and Godfrey of Bouillon being the

other two (Bryden 2005, 13).

With his figure of Arthur, Malory did not rely only on other sources, but – particularly in

the later tales of his Morte – created his own version of the king (Kennedy 1996b, 149). His

Arthur – despite showing certain weaknesses – is a good king, boasting, as Kennedy (1996b)

writes, “many of the best traits of the medieval ruler”, including an interest in the common

good, courage, a sense of justice, as well as chivalric attitudes (Ibid.). Malory stresses

Arthur’s appreciation of his knights and their strong bond, presenting the king as having

“more love for his knights than for his wife” (Ibid., 152). In the Morte Arthur does not even

want to take vengeance on Lancelot and Guinevere, waging war against his best knight not

because of the love affair but for reasons of loyalty to his nephew Gawain (Ibid., 157).

Kennedy suggests that the purpose of this change in Arthur’s representation was to reduce

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“Arthur’s personal role as husband in order to build up his public role as king” (Ibid.).

Furthermore, Kennedy notes that Arthur’s affection for his men can be regarded as a

reflection of “contemporary political conditions” as well as “Malory’s own concept of the

proper relationship between a king and his knights” (Ibid., 164).

Concerning the aspects of chivalry, the focus of Malory’s work is mainly on war and

combat – his knights are first and foremost fighting men, who are “always more than ready to

take up arms for a just cause and […] to fight cleanly” (McCarthy 1988, 72). For Malory, the

virtues of a soldier are more important than those of courtliness, and are equivalent to the

virtues a “fine man” should possess in general: “bravery, honour, truthfulness, loyalty,

generosity, prowess” (Ibid., 77). The knights in the Morte share a number of characteristics,

among them their strength and successful handling of the horse – it is not surprising, then, that

American cowboys are frequently considered to be their “direct descendants” (Ibid.).

Generally it can be said that Malory treated the traditional stories of Arthur in a unique way,

thereby giving them “a new direction, a new colour, and a new meaning”, and expressing

through them – similarly to others who came before and after him – “his own moral doctrine”

(Vinaver 1929, 41).

3.5 Propaganda, Politics and Parody: The ‘Nadir’ of Arthurian Literature?

Starting in the sixteenth century, literary interest in the legend of King Arthur

diminished, mainly due to increased doubts concerning the historical accuracy of the stories

and the King himself (Bryden 2005, 15), but also due to a lack of interest in the Middle Ages

(Kennedy1996a, xxxi). As Lupack (2009) suggests, “[t]he period between the Middle Ages

and the Victorian revival […] has generally, though not universally, been thought of as an

Arthurian nadir” (340). However, even though by the beginning of the eighteenth century,

Arthur “had fallen ‘out of literary fashion’” (Bryden 2005, 16) and his medieval adventures

were mainly regarded as “old-fashioned” (Lynch 2004, 6), Lupack (2009) writes that the

Arthurian legend has been very much kept alive between the sixteenth and eighteenth

centuries, with the chronicle tradition being more prominent (352). The concept of chivalry,

too, did not entirely lose its appeal during this period of time: In the 16th through 18th centuries, political and economic changes made knighthood obsolete as a primary occupation, but chivalry remained a significant cultural ideal, and some noble men continued to belong to chivalry orders as a way of enhancing their political or social affiliations. (Burland and Burland 2009, 134)

An important work of this period was John Dryden’s King Arthur (1691), which, as Archibald

and Putter (2009) write, “could only have been written at a time when writers no longer felt

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obliged to respect the ‘historical facts’” (6-7). This lack of obligation to history indeed

changed the face of Arthurian literature.

A notable development of the legend in this period – despite increasing scholarly

disbelief in its historical accuracy – was its use for political propaganda. Already around the

time of publication of Malory’s Morte and throughout his reign, Henry VII exploited “the

Tudor’s supposed Arthurian connections” (Aronstein 2005, 40), claiming that he had a right

to Arthur’s throne and even naming his own son after the legendary King (Bryden 2005, 15).

His successors further insisted on this claim. One of the most important works of this period

was Edmund Spenser’s poem The Faerie Queene, which he begun in 1570 and was not able

to finish (Lupack 2009, 348). The poem is a glorification of Queen “Elizabeth and her Tudor

heritage”, depicting Arthur as an embodiment of magnificence (Ibid., 348-9). The purpose of

moral instruction and the presentation of “models of virtue and good conduct” were also at

the heart of Spenser’s work (Woodcock 2003, 23). The Stuart dynasty, beginning in 1603,

too, turned to Arthur for purposes of “royal propaganda, with the prophecies of Merlin

justifying James VI of Scotland’s claim to Elizabeth’s throne” (Gossedge and Knight 2009,

104-5).

The figure of King Arthur was used extensively for political purposes between the

sixteenth and eighteenth centuries and even though the period might not necessarily be

described as “an Arthurian nadir” (Lupack 2009, 340), the legend and the (canonical) body of

Arthurian literature during that time did not grow much either. Arthur did, however, in the

first half of the eighteenth century, become a subject for literary parody in Henry Fielding’s

burlesque political satire, the play Tom Thumb: A Tragedy (1730), later turned into The

Tragedy of Tragedies: The Life and Death of Tom Thumb (Gossedge and Knight 2009, 107).

As Lynch (2004) writes, the character of Tom Thumb has been “a chapbook subject in prose

and verse since the earlier sixteenth century, always with adventures that included residence

at Arthur’s court” (10). About one hundred years earlier, Richard Johnson had written The

Historye of Tom Thumb (1621), in which “the tiny hero comes to Arthur’s court and also

gains great honour” (Gossedge and Knight 2009, 105). Fielding’s play, as Bryden (2005)

notes, can also be regarded as a parody of “[t]he cultural desire to reinvent Arthurian legend

in nationalistic terms” (17). It would take approximately one hundred years until this desire

would be reawakened and the legends of Arthur revitalised as a subject of national glory, their

meaning being altered once again to fit the purposes of a specific period of time and the

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society living in it. Chivalry, too, would come to occupy a more prominent role again, as the

Arthurian legends were revived in the nineteenth century.

3.6 A “Timeless Model For Manhood”?: The Nineteenth-Century Arthurian Revival

In the late eighteenth century, interest in the Middle Ages increased dramatically, a

development which is reflected in the numerous gothic novels produced during that time

(Pugh and Weisl 2013, 36). The Arthurian Revival in the nineteenth century owes much to

this increased interest in the medieval. Victorian society, affected by the various changes

brought about by the Industrial Revolution, regarded the Middle Ages as “a time of harmony

and order” (Kennedy 1996a, xxxiii). Both writers and artists, as Pugh and Weisl (2013) write,

thus increasingly “turned to the Middle Ages as an antidote against the pressures of modernity

in celebration of a simpler time of simpler technologies” (38). Another reason for the

Arthurian Revival in the nineteenth century was the Victorians’ belief in the medieval concept

of chivalry as a behavioural model for the nineteenth-century gentleman (Kennedy 1996a,

xxxiii). The attraction to this concept was rooted in the Victorian’s search for a “timeless

model for manhood”, which dominated the cultural discourse in this period (Mancoff 1996,

257). So did the cultural practice of hero-worship (Bryden 2005, 80). The Victorians admired

their national hero-figures, such as Wellington and Nelson, viewing them “as exemplars of

virtuous living” (Knuth 2012, 49), and recognising that their society was in “need for heroes

and for a revival of patriotism” (Ibid., 81). Thus, the increased interest in the Middle Ages,

the search for a model of manliness and the hero-worship cult of the Victorians contributed

significantly to the revival of the Arthurian legends in the nineteenth century.

What really initiated the revitalisation of Arthurian literature, however, as Kennedy

(1996a) suggests, was the publication of three new editions of Malory’s Le Morte Darthur

between 1816 and 1817 (xxxiii). While the Morte had been neglected in the time period

discussed in the previous subchapter, it now provided the basis for the essential Arthurian

works of the Victorian era – in both literature and the arts –, in which Arthur and his knights

came to embody the masculine ideal of imperial Britain. As Knuth (2012) states, “historians

mobilized [Arthur’s] legend as a rallying point for the development of national identity, social

unity, and imperialism”, while “[w]riters adapted his legend to support various interpretations

of virtue” (50). These adaptations now were no longer only directed towards an adult

readership, but also increasingly aimed at a young audience (Bryden 2005, 18-9), an

important development that is further discussed in the chapter dealing with children’s

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literature. The legends also came to be important subjects for painters, most prominently the

Pre-Raphaelites, who, in 1857, adorned “the Oxford Union with Arthurian scenes” (Gossedge

and Knight 2009, 115). Similarly, the British parliament, received Arthurian mural paintings

in 1847, and wooden and stone bas-reliefs in 1867 (Ibid.), reflecting the importance of King

Arthur and his stories in nineteenth-century British culture.

Nineteenth-century writers – as the Arthurian authors before them – used the legend for

the purpose of observing issues of modern society (Kennedy 1996a, xxxv). Arguably the two

most important contributors to the body of Arthurian literature in this regard were the English

poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, whom Bryden (2005) names as “the official instigator of Arthur’s

return” (Bryden 2005, 1), and popular American author Mark Twain. While providing two

entirely different renditions of the Arthurian story, both produced enduring works, the

importance of which cannot be underestimated. Tennyson’s Idylls of the King (1859-1885)

provides the reader with “a vision of an ideal national identity”, as well as with the depiction

of “‘ideal knights’ [who] became educational models and prepared a generation to sacrifice

itself for duty and country in the unchivalrous trenches of World War I” (Aronstein 2005, 43,

49). Tennyson does not deal with Arthur as a ‘historical’ figure, but as a mythic one

(Machann 2000, 203), and in his Idylls once again changes the nature of Arthur’s character: The principal innovation is Tennyson’s conception of Arthur himself, for the King is not the noble but flawed figure of medieval romance, but an idealised, highly symbolic figure. […] By raising Arthur from the level of the national hero of the chronicles and the often ambiguous figurehead of romance to make him exemplify man’s highest hopes and possibilities, Tennyson redefined the King and the meaning of his story, giving the western world a new myth artfully forged from the old. (Taylor and Brewer 1983, 89, 128)

Tennyson’s Arthur is, as Kennedy (1996a) describes, “an ideal ruler” and “a Christ-figure”

(xxxiv), or in Bruce’s (1999) words, a “God-appointed Sovereign […] of infallible character,

given his throne by the approval of God” (43).

Mark Twain takes a different approach to the legend. His satire, A Connecticut Yankee

in King Arthur’s Court (1889), in which the protagonist Hank Morgan travels back to the

times of King Arthur, provides a critique of both medieval and modern times – as well as the

nineteenth-century practice of glorifying the Middle Ages. Twain does not necessarily make

Arthur a tyrant, but “an ignorant man”, whose “lack of empathy for his suffering subjects

earns him the opprobrium of the novel’s protagonist” (Pugh and Weisl 2013, 70). His overall

portrayal of the king, however, as Kennedy (1996a) claims, remains positive, with Arthur

being presented in a better light than the Yankee, as “a humane and courageous king who

cares for his people” (xxxv-xxxvi). In both Twain’s and Tennyson’s influential works, as well

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as in other numerous retellings and accounts of the Arthurian legends in nineteenth-century

Britain and America one major characteristic becomes clear, namely the “centring of Arthur

as a focus of value and tragedy”, and thus as “a focus for evaluating the period itself”

(Gossedge and Knight 2009, 116). As Lacy (2009) writes, Twain with his Connecticut Yankee

strengthened “the notion that the king and the legend are, or can be, whatever we want them

to be” (Lacy 2009, 121). This notion was taken up in the first half of the twentieth century by

school-teacher and novelist, T.H. White, who – similarly to Twain – tried “to turn the legend

on its head” (Aronstein 2005, 31) – amidst the destruction and turmoil of World War I and II.

3.7 An Anti-War Message: T.H. White’s The Once and Future King

In his “anti-war manifesto” (Lacy 2009, 124), consisting of five books and published as

a whole as The Once and Future King in 1958, White paints a different portrait of Arthur as

well as a different portrait of England as a non-imperialist and non-military nation (Aronstein

2005, 31). Although using the same source – Malory’s Morte –, White’s approach to the

legend is rather different than the one the majority of nineteenth-century writers had had. For

him, the ‘old days’ of Arthur – a period of glory for the Victorians – are not “the days of

Merry England”, but rather “provisional at best”, a time that society needs to learn from and

to “progress beyond” (Ibid., 49). There are various additions the Arthurian tradition owes to

T.H. White’s influential work. First, White gives “psychological depth to the numerous

characters” that appear in Malory’s Morte (Gallix 1996, 282). Second, the first book of his

work, The Sword in the Stone (1938) provides a first account of the future king’s childhood

and education, an episode missing entirely from the Morte and other sources, which allowed

White the freedom to explore this period in Arthur’s life to his desire (Gallix 1996, 282). The

Sword in the Stone is also of special importance, because it is regarded as “the great classic of

Arthurian children’s literature” (Archibald and Putter 2009, 7).

The exploration of war and violence – important and unavoidable subjects in the years

in which White worked on his Arthuriad – is one of the most crucial elements in The Once

and Future King (Hadfield 2009, 421). White was a pacifist and regarded “his novels as part

of the war effort” (Ibid.), alluding to Hitler and to fascism multiple times throughout his work

(Gallix 1996, 288). In a letter, White even wrote that “[t]he Round Table was an anti-Hitler

measure” (cited in Gallix 1996, 283). Arthur undergoes several stages of development

throughout the books and at one point, as Hadfield (2009) argues, we are even “being asked to

think of Arthur in terms of Hitler”, when he wants “‘to impose his ideas on King Lot’” (425).

In the final book, Mordred comes to embody the values of Hitler (Ibid., 429). A second

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crucial element in White’s Arthuriad is education. As Lynch (2009) notes, White – as a

schoolteacher – was interested in conveying through his work “the socio-political and

psychological effects of education and upbringing” (Lynch 2009, 181). In the first book,

Arthur, the Wart, is tutored by Merlyn. He is, as Kennedy (1996a) writes, “not overly bright

but eager to learn” and “fortunate in having in Merlyn a tutor who teaches him to think and to

question” (xxxvii). White’s The Once and Future King furthermore functions – similarly to

Twain’s Connecticut Yankee – as a critique of the common employment of medievalism for

the purpose of glorifying “the idea of war and empire” (Lynch 2009, 181). By the mid-

twentieth century, both Twain and White had – as already mentioned – demonstrated “that the

king and the legend are, or can be, whatever we want them to be” (Lacy 2009, 121). This

development continued throughout the twentieth century and is reflected in modern

Arthuriana, as the subsequent subchapter shows.

3.8 Modern Arthuriana: Tendencies and Developments

There are several tendencies that scholars have detected in modern Arthuriana, i.e.

Arthurian literature from the first half of the twentieth century onwards. As a major

development, the novel has come to serve as the most common form to convey the stories of

Arthur (Thompson 1985, 176). This form, as Thompson (1985) suggests, “is well suited to the

complex analysis of character and motivation” (Ibid.). As a result, modern Arthuriana also

“tends to humanize traditional figures” (Ibid.). Characters thus tend to be depicted less as

‘black or white’, i.e. they are less categorised as either entirely good or completely evil, and

part of the blame is frequently shifted to characters other than the traditional villains (Ibid.,

176-7). The exploration of the psychological motivation of the characters has indeed become

a major feature of modern Arthurian fiction (Ibid., 174). This exploration in turn results in the

discovery of “new possibilities inherent in traditional roles” and ultimately in a deeper

understanding of the Arthurian tradition as a whole (Ibid., 175).

Changes in narrative technique, too, have altered the face of Arthurian literature from

the mid-twentieth century onwards. Arthurian stories increasingly came to be told “from the

point of view of one (or more) of the characters”, and first-person narration came to dominate

the tradition (Stephens 2009, 95). Prior to this development, Arthurian retellings were told

from the ‘outside’, by an omniscient narrator, with events being “narrated rather than

focalised by the characters themselves”, which tends to “leave a text’s assumed core values

unaddressed and hence unchallenged” (Ibid., 94). Maria Nikolajeva (2005) writes, that “[i]n

contemporary children’s and especially young adult fiction, personal narration has become

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very common” (174), a tendency that – as mentioned above – is reflected in modern

Arthuriana as a whole. In first-person narration, readers are confronted not with the definite

retelling, but gain insight into a “personalised and restricted” narrative (Ibid., 96). As

Nikolajeva (2005) states, “[a] character can only convey his or her subjective perception of

the events and other characters” (Nikolajeva 2005, 178). This limited perspective invites

readers to “speculate about motivations and power relations amongst the characters”, thus

opening up new interpretations and possibilities, especially when the narrator or focaliser of

the story is a villain in the traditional Arthurian texts (Stephens 2009, 96). Similarly as the

psychological exploration of characters leads to the breaking-down of “simplistic good-evil

dichotomies” and the focus on the “conflicting desires of the characters” (Ibid.), so does the

depiction of different perspectives and narrative voice. As Stephens (2009) writes, “[s]uch

narrative strategies enable a text to rework relationships grounded on gendered or other

hierarchies and to renegotiate the ideologies and values inherent in those hierarchies” (Ibid.).

In general, narrative strategies have been varied in modern Arthurian fiction, rendering

retellings “more self-reflexive” (Ibid.). The tendency towards personal narration or

impersonal narration with focalisation can also be observed in the two novels selected for

analysis in this thesis. Yolen’s Sword of the Rightful King (2003) is told by an impersonal

narrator. Through focalisation of various characters, however, the reader gains insight into

their thoughts and feelings. Reeve’s Here Lies Arthur (2007) makes use of first-person

narration.

As Kellogg (2003) suggests, contemporary writers “continually find new directions” to

take the Arthurian legends and modify them to suit “more modern concerns” (5). Lacy (2009),

too, has found that both authors and filmmakers that deal with the story of Arthur have taken

on new points of view and have “used the legend for new purposes” (129), just as the writers

of generations before them. Lacy further claims that, especially since the second half of the

twentieth century, “a realistic […] and revisionist interpretation of the legend” has become

common (125). One popular example for this tendency cannot be found in literature, but in

the film industry. Monty Python’s 1975 spoof of the Arthurian legend, Monty Python and the

Holy Grail (dir. Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones), plays against the audience’s expectations of

the Arthurian story, parodying both the legend and popular conceptions of it (Taylor and

Brewer 1983, 315). Most remarkable, however, as Thompson (1985) explains, is the “sheer

variety of the treatment” of the Arthurian legends and characters in modern fiction (3).

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Archibald (2009a) mentions one of the most important changes that took place in

modern Arthurian literary tradition, namely the shift of “focus from a hero central to the

legend (Arthur, Lancelot, Gawain) to a more marginal character” (150). This shift of focus in

turn allows for “criticism and even subversion” (Ibid.), thus providing the new points of view

mentioned above as well as leading to new insights into the legend. Particularly since the

second half of the twentieth century, the focus has frequently been shifted to female

characters (Ibid.). As Lacy (2009) writes, “[t]he publication of novels and short stories that

feature women is one of the major developments in Arthurian fiction of the second half of the

[twentieth] century” (124). The most popular example for this development is Marion

Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon (1982), a feminist retelling of the legend, which omits

“any episode which could not have been witnessed by a female character”, thereby calling

“attention to the male literary biases of the past” (Archibald 2009a, 150).

Prior to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s publication of The Mists of Avalon in 1982, women

writers still adhered to the (masculine) conventions of the Arthurian tradition by writing “in

the voice of male protagonists” (Davidson 2012, 7). This situation changed, however, and

feminist Arthurian retellings became particularly common in the following decades. The

feminist Arthurian tradition, as Tolhurst (2012) notes, provides a female readership

especially, with “access to retellings of the Arthurian legend that displace the male-centered

and overtly Christian worldview palpable in medieval texts” (Tolhurst 2012, 69). Feminist

retellings indeed defy “the overarching masculine ethos of Arthurian legend” and, in addition,

abolish or at least diminish various cultural predispositions that are inherent in the legends of

King Arthur and his knights (Pugh and Weisl 2013, 75-7): Their stories recast the gendered politics of Arthurian romances by exploring the knightly world of chivalry through the perspectives of such characters as Guinevere [and] Morgan le Fay […] (Ibid., 75)

There are certain tendencies and elements that can be detected in modern Arthurian

fiction produced by women. One of the particularly prevalent trends that emerged within the

past three decades is female authors’ “introduction of women warriors”, who skilfully “handle

swords and spears, bows and arrows” (Davidson 2012, 10). Additionally, female protagonists

are frequently portrayed as boyish characters in these works: […] the favored protagonist is seldom depicted in a hyper-sexualized way. […] She is unconcerned with her own appearance, despite her beauty; she is good at physical activities such as horseback riding and/or weapons play; she is independent, unconventional, and uncertain if she wants to be a wife; and she is loyal towards the community of women. (Ibid.)

At times, female protagonists even appear “disguised as a boy” (Ibid., 13). This tendency, too,

can be found in the two novels chosen for analysis. As a third common element, romance

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largely plays a crucial role in Arthurian fiction produced by female authors (Ibid., 12).

Generally it can be said, that in the past decades feminist values have become an increasingly

important part of Western culture and society, though this development influences “male and

female authors differently” (Tolhurst 2012, 88). Tolhurst (2012) explains the result: [M]ale authors feel pressure to treat their female protagonists particularly well in order both to avoid accusations of misogyny while female authors feel free to treat their female protagonists however they wish. (Ibid.)

The influence of feminist concerns on children’s fiction – as observed already in the

Introduction – can thus also be recognised in modern Arthuriana. While this chapter

introduced the field of Arthurian literature, the next chapter aims to provide the reader with an

overview of children’s literature. This overview is followed by the analysis of the selected

novels in Chapter Five and the Conclusion, in which all findings are summarised.

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4 Children’s Literature: An Introduction

4.1 ‘Children’s Literature’ and ‘Childhood’: The Troubles of Definition

Scholarly interest in the field of children’s literature has increased dramatically over the

past decades. One major aim of academic research in the field has been to define the genre

and its origins. Thus, just as Arthurian scholars commonly start with the questions ‘Did

Arthur exist?’ and ‘When did he exist?’, researchers in the field of children’s literature

frequently begin by asking ‘What is children’s literature?’ and ‘When did it start?’. Neither of

these questions, it seems, can be answered satisfactorily. Definitions of the term ‘children’s

literature’ vary. In the Preface to the International Companion Encyclopedia to Children’s

Literature (2004) acclaimed scholar Peter Hunt writes: [C]hildren’s literature is (among many other things) a body of texts (in the widest sense of that word), an academic discipline, an educational and social tool, an international business and a cultural phenomenon. (xviii)

Scholars have been focussing on different aspects to identify a literary text as belonging to the

field of ‘children’s literature’, including the length of a work, common patterns, or narrative

style (Rudd 2010, 9), however, without arriving at a universal definition for the term.

Nikolajeva (2005) suggests that children’s literature should be viewed as “a broader category,

incorporating a wide variety of different genres” (50). Grenby (2012), too, stresses the

increasing diversity of children’s literature, which further complicates the possibility of a

universal definition of the term (6).

4.2 Of Purity and Innocence: Changing Conceptions of ‘Childhood’

Definitions of the term ‘children’s literature’ and its development throughout time are

essentially linked to adults’ changing conceptions of the ‘child’ and ‘childhood’. As Rudd

(2010) explains, “the category ‘child’ has no intrinsic referent, only that which different

societies have determined” (7). The same can be said of the term ‘childhood’, which, too, can

be described as “a socially constructed state” (Ibid., 8). Conceptions of the ‘child’ and

‘childhood’ – just as conceptions of gender – are constructed and shaped by the culture and

time period in which they are created. Class also plays an important role. Immel (2012) offers

an example: A subsistence farmer in thirteenth-century France, a society where childhood mortality was extremely high and Roman Catholicism permeated all of life, would have quite a different perspective on childhood from an upper middle-class father in Victorian England, whose children were likely to survive into adulthood but would bear the weight of dynastic, national and imperial expectations. (19)

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While earlier scholars insisted that the state of ‘childhood’ had not even existed in the Middle

Ages, scholars today share the opinion that this notion is exaggerated, while agreeing that

indeed “childhood was a far less separate sphere at this time” (Rudd 2010, 8). A more modern

idea of the phase of childhood arose in the seventeenth century due to “the emergence of the

nuclear family and the development of schooling” (Ibid.). According to Rudd (2010) it was

also largely due to the rise of print technology that childhood came into prominence and

arrived at the centre of consumer interest (12).

In the Victorian era, the terms of ‘childhood’ and ‘children’s literature’ again came to

be drastically (re)defined. Building on eighteenth-century “concerns over education and the

accompanying recognition of childhood as an ideally separate and unique phase of human

life”, the Victorians clearly distinguished between childhood and adulthood and came to

realise the importance and potential of telling stories specifically to children (Roberts 2002,

354). The Victorians, as Roberts (2002) writes, “strove to measure their own morality and

improve their society by telling stories about and to children”, whom they regarded as

embodying “purity, innocence, virtue – indeed, all those good characteristics which adults,

supposedly, had lost” (Ibid., 355). Furthermore, they discovered the economic potential of

children’s literature, as Rudd (2010) explains: With the Industrial Revolution and the growth of capitalism, the child would become a niche market with its own products, including books, illustrations, toys and games. (3)

Bavidge (2011) explains how adults still define themselves against children and “continually

project an idea of childhood” onto them and onto “all their activities” (235). Today, children

are still largely regarded as “innocent, natural, helpless, pure and so on” (Rudd 2010, 3). As

Rudd (2010) writes, “[a]ttempts to define what a child is will no doubt continue, as will

related attempts to characterize a children’s book” (Ibid., 9).

4.3 ‘Utile et Dolce’: The Purpose(s) of Children’s Literature

Despite the difficulties of defining the genre, the majority of scholars, it appears, have

agreed on the twofold purpose of children’s literature: to entertain and to instruct. While

entertainment is certainly an important feature of children’s books, the didactic, or instructive,

nature and origin of the genre need to be emphasised at this point. As Nikolajeva (2012)

writes, children’s literature in its early stages was primarily aimed at educating and socialising

its young readership (50), and it has done so “consciously and consistently” throughout the

ages (Nikolajeva 2005, xiii). Alderson (2012), too, highlights that “[f]or much of their

history”, children’s books have primarily been viewed “as keys to unlock gateways into

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learning, or proper social comportment” (37). Early works for children, as Vallone (2012)

writes, “attempted to supply the needs of incomplete, impressionable and ignorant children by

offering them religious guidance, moral lessons and/or reading instruction”, thereby serving

as a bridge from childhood into maturity, i.e. adulthood (176).

Simmons (2009) states that starting in the 1850s, children’s authors distanced

themselves from the open didacticism that characterised earlier works (146). However, the

majority of Victorian writers of juvenile fiction nonetheless remained “highly conscious of

their obligations to edify the audience” (Ibid.) and increasingly followed the “ideal of clothing

didacticism in amusement” (Roberts 2002, 356). This practice had already been praised and

used from the seventeenth century onwards (Alderson 2012, 37) and rests upon the “ancient

ideal of tuition as ‘utile et dolce’ (useful and pleasant), a famous phrase from the Roman poet

Horace usually translated into English as ‘instruction with delight’” (Immel 2012, 28).

Regardless of an author’s intentions or obligations, children’s literature undoubtedly has

always played an important part in “shaping children’s lives” and in providing “models for

child behaviour” – functions for which it has been disparaged as well as praised (Webb 2015,

1).

4.4 Origins and History: The Development of Children’s Literature

Children’s literature, the majority of scholars argue, “began in the mid eighteenth

century and took hold first in Britain”, though highly didactic literature, such as William

Caxton’s Book of Curtesye (1477) or John Bunyan’s A Book for Boys and Girls (1686), aimed

at instructing young readers in religious or moral terms, had already been available before that

time (Grenby 2012, 4-5). A number of texts for entertainment had also been directed at a child

audience prior to the mid-eighteenth century, with children additionally reading “texts that

were not necessarily designed exclusively for them” (Ibid., 5). Frequently, John Newbery’s A

Little Pretty Pocket-Book, published in 1744, is regarded as the ‘official’ starting point of

children’s literature (Rudd 2004, 29), though some scholars, such as Grenby (2012), suggest

that “Newbery’s role has been exaggerated” (4). Other scholars do not even share the

common view placing the origins of children’s literature in the 1740s, but claim that the

beginnings of the genre can be traced back to the Middle Ages, or even to classical Rome and

Greece (Ibid., 5).

Regardless of the exact origins of children’s literature, it can be said that starting in the

1860s, the mode of children’s writing changed markedly, and a new period in Anglo-

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American children’s literature began (Bavidge 2011, 231). This period is commonly referred

to as the ‘Golden Age’ of children’s literature and lasted until World War I (Ibid.). A large

number of so-called canonical works in the field was produced during this ‘Golden Age’,

including, for instance, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865). The

classification of children’s books as classic or canonical, however, remains an issue of

debate, as Peter Hunt (2014) writes: When adults impose a canon on child readers they are responding to an adult impulse of organization and validation which has little to do with the interaction of the child and the book. (11).

Nevertheless, the existence of a canon in children’s literature cannot be denied (Ibid.). The

years between World War I and II saw, as Bavidge (2011) writes, “a continuation of the

newly modern tone of children’s literature” and brought forth numerous memorable

characters, such as Mary Poppins and Winnie the Pooh, who are still widely recognised today

(232).

One of the main literary genres of children’s literature is fantasy, which emerged at the

beginning of the nineteenth century, with E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse

King, published in 1816, generally and internationally being regarded “as the first fantasy

explicitly addressed to children, since the protagonist is a little girl, the point of departure is

the nursery, and many characters are toys” (Nikolajeva 2012, 50). Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s

Adventures in Wonderland (1865) – already mentioned above –, Charles Kingsley’s Water

Babies (1863) and George MacDonald’s works are notable examples of the fantasy genre for

children and all fall into the period of the ‘Golden Age’. The first half of the twentieth century

brought forth a large number of classic children’s fantasies as well, with the following works,

among others, being published: Frank L. Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) – which

was “one of the first American children’s fantasy novels” (Nikolajeva 2012, 52) – J.M.

Barrie’s Peter Pan (1911), J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1937), and C.S. Lewis’s Narnia

books (1950-56).

Starting in the 1960s, however, juvenile fiction – influenced by socio-political changes

– increasingly became characterised by a new form of realism, as it started to deal with taboo

topics such as sex and violence (Bavidge 2011, 232). This development in turn led to the

emergence of so-called Young Adult books, i.e. “books written specifically for teenagers”

(Ibid.). Besides the age distinction, Nikolajeva (2005) suggests another criterion to

differentiate between children’s and Young Adult’s novels, namely the absence or presence of

parental figures (57):

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In children’s novels, parents or guardians are comfortably removed to give the protagonist the freedom to explore the world. In a young adult novel, at least one parental figure has to be reintroduced, to allow a parental revolt, which is an indispensable step in maturation. (Ibid.)

Novels categorised as Young Adult frequently focus on a quest for identity as well as on

social alienation (Bavidge 2011, 232). According to Butler (2014), the field of children’s

literature today has eventually “moved into a complex, ‘post-Harry Potter’ phase of

development in which no single genre or style can truly claim dominance” (1).

4.5 ‘Dick and Jane’: Gender in Children’s Literature

As already mentioned in the Introduction, gender and gender ideology play an important

role in the development of children, who, from an early age, have to learn how to ‘fit’ into the

categories of ‘male’ and ‘female’, respectively. Crucial for this development are the images

and portrayals of gender and gender roles that children and adolescents encounter in the

media as well as in literature. From its beginning, children’s literature was closely linked to

“material culture, and reading and play were seen through the lens of gender” (Clark 1999, 1).

Indeed, until recently, girlhood and boyhood have largely been “treated as separate, different

and unequal in children’s literature” (Simmons 2009, 143). Simmons (2009) explains: Eighteenth-, nineteenth- and twentieth-century children’s books are full of strong, active boy characters, and much more submissive, domestic and introspective girls. (Ibid.)

Children’s books were (and still largely are) also divided according to their readership – there

were books for girls and books for boys. Yet, the earliest texts produced for children, such as

Newbery’s A Little Pretty Pocket-Book (1744) mentioned above, had been directed both at a

female and male audience (Ibid., 144). Toward the end of the eighteenth century, however,

“there was increased stratification of texts along gender lines” and by the late nineteenth

century, “the separate fictional worlds of boys and girls were being demarcated with great

clarity, each with its own internal laws and its own territory, from which the other sex was

outlawed” (Ibid.). This development can not only be seen in the production of children’s

books during that time, but also in their magazines. For example, in Britain, boys and girls

had their own periodicals. There was the Boys’ Own Paper (1855-1967), which “encouraged

the development of specifically ‘manly’ attributes”, and the Girls’ Own Paper, first published

in 1880, which conveyed family and ‘domestic’ values to their young female readership

(Ibid.).

Thus, it can be said, that from the early nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century,

children’s literature “was supposed to prepare youthful readers to enter a society where strict,

even unforgiving, codes governed male and female conduct” (Ibid., 146). Stereotypical

representations of males and females hence were the norm. This practice or ideology, which

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Sutherland (1985) calls “the Dick & Jane consensus”, remained intact for so long, because

“authors had so far internalized societal beliefs about ‘maleness’ and ‘femininity’ and the

kind of behaviors appropriate to each that the stereotypes came unbidden” (152).

Nevertheless, it can be said that even during the nineteenth century, there have also been

works in children’s fiction, which challenged gender stereotypes. “Most noticeably”, as

Simmons (2009) writes, “this period saw the rise of the literary tomboy”, such as Jo March in

Little Women, written by Louisa May Alcott and published in 1868 (147). In the majority of

tomboy-stories, Simmons elaborates, “the reader is not left with an impression of freakishness

and abjection, or even very severe gender confusion” (Ibid.). Interestingly, the same cannot be

said of boy characters acting in a feminine way: There is no direct equivalent of the word ‘tomboy’ for boys who behave like girls, or at least no equivalent that is not much more pejorative. This may be taken as an indication that the proprieties of gender roles have been even more rigidly enforced for boys than for girls (certainly it has taken longer for non-boyish boy readers to find sympathetic portraits of themselves in children’s books). (Ibid., 152)

As Sutherland (1985) explains, boys in children’s fiction “who did not conform to the

ideology’s assumptions regarding masculinities” either belonged to the categories of

“intellectuals or ‘sissies’”, both of which were regarded “as deviant and providing poor role

models” (152). Despite largely following the purpose of conveying a masculine agenda to

their boy readers, however, children’s texts provide more than one singular model of

masculinity, Simmons (2009) argues: Certainly many interesting and enduring children’s books since the late nineteenth century have not represented any one simple model of masculinity. Neither the hero of Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) nor Jim Hawkins in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1883) can be described as ‘sporting, spying or fighting heroes’, even though they may sport, spy or fight during the course of their adventures. […] Male protagonists, even of the muscular Christian persuasion, have not suppressed their feminine side. (154)

Nevertheless, these male characters cannot be considered as a direct equivalent of the female

tomboy – they cannot be described as “a boy who behaves like a girl” (Ibid.). The fact that

with the rise of feminism, children’s literature changed drastically and the representation of

female characters altered as well, has already been discussed in the Introduction. The

remaining subsections of this chapter deal with children’s Arthuriana, focusing on how both

in Britain and in the United States the legends have been used to convey the traditional

masculine ideology to a largely male audience.

4.6 ‘Chivalric Gentlemen’ In the Making: Victorian and Edwardian Versions of the Legend for Children

From the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, young readers – who in fact had been

familiar with King Arthur’s name already by the end of the sixteenth century (Nastali 2004,

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172) – were introduced to the Arthurian legends through short and simplified histories,

chapbook romances and ballads (Lynch 2004, 1). This situation only changed with the

Arthurian Revival in the nineteenth century, already discussed in the previous chapter, when

adaptations of Malory’s Morte started to be produced for a child audience. Though

“adaptation of Arthurian legend as a childhood subject was not immediate” in the Victorian

period due to the dark nature of certain aspects of the story, King Arthur and his knights

eventually also came to embody manliness, the virtues of the Victorian gentleman, and the

ideals of British nationalism and imperialism in books for the young (Kellogg 2003, 3). The

core audience for Arthurian literary works in the nineteenth (and also early twentieth) century,

thus, unsurprisingly, was primarily male. As Kellogg (2003) writes, “Arthurian legends

became tailored to provide privileged British schoolboys the lessons they need to become

proper chivalric gentlemen” and “adapted well to training the younger generation to support

British imperialist ambitions” (Ibid.). The idea that “Arthurian stories could furnish

behavioral models for the young” played an essential part in the production of juvenile

versions of the legend throughout the nineteenth and well into the twentieth century (Nastali

2004, 175).

Starting in the 1860s the number of retellings of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte

Darthur for children increased greatly. Among the various reasons for this increase were, as

Lynch (2004) describes, “greater censorship and the associated belief that there should be a

separate literature for children as a ‘class’” (12). Malory’s version of Arthur was adapted

according to adult tastes and changed in various respects. Female characters gained more

importance than in the Morte – though adapters still adhered to traditional gender roles –,

Malory’s language and style were ‘updated’, and certain episodes were omitted due to

censorship (Ibid., 14). As a result, “many children’s versions became more childish, often

aimed at younger readers, more open to girls, and even more distant from the original” (Ibid.,

18-9). In addition, adaptations were openly didactic, serving the purpose of advocating

“nation and empire, chivalry and the gentleman” (Ibid., 2). Among the best-known

adaptations are Sir James Knowles’s The Story of King Arthur (1860), Andrew Lang’s Book

of Romance (1902), Alfred W. Pollard’s abridgement of 1917 – including illustrations by

Arthur Rackham –, Enid Blyton’s The Knights of the Round Table (1930), and Roger

Lancelyn Green’s King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table (1953), which is still

widely regarded as a standard version today. Rosemary Sutcliff’s trilogy from 1981 is also

praised by contemporary scholars. However, adaptations of Malory’s work for children were

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not only produced in Britain, but also in the United States – largely with similarly didactic

intentions.

4.7 ‘Knights of King Arthur’: The Legend for Boys (and Girls) in America

As scholars dealing with the Arthurian legend in America frequently note, “there is an

inherent contradiction involved in bringing King Arthur to America”, referring to the fact that

Arthur ultimately bears the title of king because it is his birthright – which contradicts

American mentality and the nation’s founding principles (Lupack 1998, 121). Nevertheless,

Arthur’s story was – and still is – immensely popular in the United States. The Americans’

interest in Arthur, peaking in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, was largely rooted in

their fascination with the Middle Ages, which they regarded as “a time filled with an

emotional and physical vitality” (Fox-Friedman 1998, 143). Americans appropriated the

Middle Ages and its values, interpreting them in their own way in order “to reaffirm the

modernity of American individualism and capitalist democracy” (Ibid., 151). Children’s

Arthuriana produced during the nineteenth and early twentieth century reflected these values

– and similarly to Arthurian works in Britain – instructed a primarily male readership by

providing young boys with a model of manliness, which according to Fox-Friedman (1998)

“continues to govern America’s ideal of masculinity” to the present day (Ibid., 154).

The best-known children’s adaptations of Malory’s Morte in the American Arthurian

tradition arguably are Sidney Lanier’s The Boy’s King Arthur (1880) and Howard Pyle’s self-

illustrated four-volume Arthuriad (1903-1910). Both authors address a male audience and

adhere to the custom of using Arthur’s story “for social and moral edification” (Lupack 1998,

125), presenting heroes whose virtues and behaviour it was necessary for boys to emulate.

Lanier saw his Boy’s King Arthur as a way to convey chivalric ideals of the American South –

a purpose to which the legend was used by American writers of adult novels at the time as

well – while intentionally “inserting a didactic message” (Taylor and Brewer 1983, 164). The

situation was similar with Howard Pyle. Regarding his aim in adapting the Arthurian legends,

Fox-Friedman (1998) writes: […] the deeper meaning of Pyle’s chivalric stories and illustrations addressed in didactic, moral terms the development of a particularly American form of nineteenth-century medievalism. […] Howard Pyle often inserted moral tags at the end of many of his tales, each time underscoring a particular moral point that the story was presenting. (139-42)

In these – and numerous other American Arthurian works – Arthur is represented not as a

king deemed so by birth or divine right, living in a distant time and place, but rather as “the

common man” living in modern (American) reality (Lupack 1998, 125).

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An interesting aspect of the Arthurian legend in America is its usage for the

establishment of youth clubs and their moral codes in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth

century. As Grant (2004) explains, this period was “clearly a watershed in the shaping of

modern manhood” in the United States (Grant 2004, 831). Starting in the late nineteenth

century, effeminacy increasingly became regarded as a potential “threat to the progress of

American civilization”, even – or particularly – by such eminent political figures as Theodore

Roosevelt (Ibid., 830). At the same time, psychologists such as G. Stanley Hall were

concerned about taming “the savage impulses” of boys, which are ‘in their nature’ (Ibid.,

833). A debate emerged around the so-called ‘boy problem’. Consequently, a ‘masculine’

upbringing for boys was deeply encouraged in order “to turn problem boys into ‘real boys’”

(Ibid.). Boys’ clubs and scouting were introduced as ideal leisure activities for male children

and were regarded as the solution for the ‘boy problem’, aiming at “both arousing and

controlling masculine impulses” (Ibid., 832). Such activities were soon adapted for girls as

well (Ibid.).

In the late nineteenth century, the minister William Byron Forebush (1868-1927)

founded the ‘Knights of King Arthur’ clubs and later the ‘Queens of Avalon’ Club as

“attempts to teach both boys and girls how to submit and find contentment in rote obedience”

(Wheeler 2012, 3-4). These organisations were aimed at young boys and girls, respectively,

aged between thirteen and sixteen, and, as Finke and Aronstein (2012) write, were established

with the aim to “rescue America’s youth from the wasteland of modern urbanism and produce

the leaders and mothers of tomorrow” (23). Boys were supposed to learn and acquire the

ideals of masculinity, while girls were to be taught about ‘real’ womanhood (Ibid.) – all under

the banner of the Arthurian legends. The establishment of the ‘Knights of King Arthur’ clubs

was rooted in Forbush’s belief that “boyhood was the best ‘time for shaping ideals’” (Lupack

2012, 60). Aimed at shaping the minds of young American boys and girls, these clubs

demonstrate that the Arthurian legend was not only used in literature for purposes of social

and moral instruction, but also in different forms.

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5 Analysis

5.1 Arthurian Stories with a Twist: Introducing the Selected Novels

Before analysing the imperatives of the ‘boy code’ and the use of cross-dressing as

represented in the selected novels, brief plot summaries are provided in this subchapter. First

of all, it has to be noted, that both novels endow the Arthurian legend with a twist,

deconstructing the myth of King Arthur in their own ways and to different extents. Sword of

the Rightful King, written by Jane Yolen and published in 2003, and henceforth abbreviated as

SOTRK, focuses on the episode of the sword in the stone. Set some time in the Middle Ages,

its narrative voice is impersonal, with various characters being focalized throughout the book.

Arthur is only twenty-two years old, but already High King of Britain; he is loved, respected

and admired by his Companions, but he also has enemies, the strongest of them being

Morgause, the North Witch, Queen of the Orkneys, whose sons, Gawaine, Agravaine, Gareth

and Gaheris, have been sent to King Arthur’s court. Morgause claims that her sons have a

right to the throne, since her mother, Ygraine, had been married to the previous High King,

Uther. Arthur is the son of Uther and Ygraine, but unaware of it, since only Merlinnus knows

about his parentage. Arthur’s enemies claim that he is a usurper, that he is only High King

because his advisor, the wizard Merlinnus, has willed it through his magic. In order to make

all people believe in Arthur and the legitimacy of his kingship, Merlinnus devises a plan: the

sword in the stone. He builds this construction and puts a spell on the sword, which would

allow no man but Arthur to draw it, thereby asserting his role as ‘the rightful king of all

Britain’.

Arthur is a good king, but in Merlinnus’ opinion he lacks vision; he finds the throne ‘too

hard’ and is reluctant to read and write, preferring the sword to the pen. One day, a boy called

Gawen arrives at Arthur’s court. Merlinnus destroys the boy’s hope of becoming a knight, and

instead takes him in as his servant and protégé. This boy, Gawen, is the opposite of Arthur –

he is well-read and solution-oriented, which is why he soon becomes almost as much of an

advisor to the king as the mage. He also becomes Arthur’s saviour by destroying a potion

concocted by the North Witch to weaken Arthur and prevent him from drawing the sword

from the stone, thereby proving that he is the ‘rightful King of Britain’. He further manages to

retrieve the sword himself, despite Merlinnus’ magic spells, by using melted butter. When

Arthur and Merlinnus learn about Gawen’s trick, they find out that he is actually not a

thirteen-year-old boy, but the twenty-one-year-old ‘maid’, Gwenhwyfar. In the following

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analysis, this character is referred to as ‘Gawen’, ‘Gwen’ only being used for description of

the few scenes at the end of the novel. Impressed by Gwen’s wit and believing that it is meant

to be, Arthur asks her to marry him, which they do a year later, with Arthur promising Gwen

that he will work not only on his sword-fighting skills, but also on his writing.

Here Lies Arthur, henceforth abbreviated as HLA, was written by Philip Reeve and

published in 2007. This novel takes the deconstruction of the Arthurian legend many steps

farther than Yolen in her SOTRK; indeed, Reeve demythologises and deglorifies almost the

entire Arthurian story in his plot, including the figure of King Arthur. The protagonist and

narrator in HLA, which is set in fifth-century Britain, is Gwyna, a slave girl, who is taken in

by Myrddin, Arthur’s bard and advisor – not a magician or prophet –, who spins glorifying

tales about him. Deeply convinced that Britain needs Arthur, the bard leaves out no

opportunity to play a trick or spin a new story that could help the man gain more influence

and power. However, Arthur is not the hero of the stories, but a mere tyrant. He is a petty

warlord, not a king; he is aggressive, greedy for power, land and gold, and generally depicted

as an unlikeable character. The traditional hero figure of Arthur thus only exists in Myrddin’s

stories and in the imagination of the people. In his novel, Reeve manages, as Tolhurst (2012)

describes, to successfully undermine “the legend of Arthur’s greatness” (75). He also

manages to draw attention to the social construction of gender, as can be seen in the analysis

below.

When Arthur’s bard, Myrddin, first encounters Gwyna, he recognises that the child may

be useful to him and makes her ‘perform’ the role of the Lady of the Lake, who hands Arthur

his sword, Caliburn. Myrddin does not want to leave the girl behind, which is why he decides,

that henceforth Gwyna should be his servant and accompany Arthur’s band on their travels –

disguised as a boy, Gwyn, so that no one would recognise her as the ‘lake lady’. In the

following analysis, the protagonist of HLA is referred to as ‘Gwyn(a)’ in the scenes in which

she appears as a boy, and ‘Gwyna’ in those she appears as a girl. In her disguise, Gwyn(a)

experiences Arthur’s arrogance, conceit and betrayal, as well as his ruthless violence,

culminating in the beheading of his nephew, who unluckily has fallen in love and started an

affair with Arthur’s wife, Gwenhwyfar, for whom the war-lord had not had any love anyway.

At this point in the story, Gwyna has returned to appearing as a girl, since her body had no

longer allowed her to pretend being a boy. Only later does she decide – this time on her own –

to become Gwyn again. Despite having experienced the ‘real’ Arthur throughout her years of

growing up around him and knowing about Myrddin’s embellishment of Arthur’s feats and

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victories, Gwyna eventually decides – after Arthur has fallen in a battle against his nephew

Medraut, and Myrddin has died because of sickness – to continue spreading the bard’s stories,

telling the people across the country about the great Arthur and his fantastic deeds, thereby

becoming “the creator of the Arthurian legend” (Tolhurst 2012, 75).

5.2 “Boys Will Be Boys”: The ‘Boy Code’ under Scrutiny

As Schrock and Schwalbe (2009) explain, a child is “born into a world in which

males/boys/men are differentiated from females/girls/women” (281). As children grow up,

they “must learn to categorize themselves and others in these terms and learn to convey to

others that they understand this system of categorization and their place within it” (Ibid.).

Boys have to learn how to “identify themselves as boys and signify masculine selves” by

mastering so-called ‘identity-codes’ (Ibid.). The ‘boy code’ is such an ‘identity code’; it is the

result of an accumulation of “a thousand models of boyhood”, which have eventually

“become melted into an all-purpose stereotype” (Pollack 1999, xxii). As Kahn (2009)

describes, the ‘boy code’ comprises “the various complex ways in which people communicate

to men the ways in which they believe they need to act, think, and feel in order to meet the

criteria of this rigid gender role” (216). The messages, or ‘rules’, of the ‘boy code’ are

conveyed and perpetuated through the media, including books, but boys are also taught to

follow this ‘code’ “by peers […], parents, teachers, coaches – just about everywhere and from

everyone” (Kimmel and Davis 2011, 7).

The behavioural guidelines provided by the ‘boy code’, as Kimmel and Davis (2011)

write, are not merely suggestions, but “strict rules that must be followed”, unless one is

prepared to deal with the consequences of breaking them (Ibid.). Considering these facts, it

can be said that the ‘boy code’ and the ‘chivalric code’ described in the chapter on the

Arthurian legend have two important aspects in common. First, both codes demand

“obedience to a number of precise do’s and don’t’s”, and second, “[f]ailure to follow the code

results in the loss of one’s honour and, even worse, of one’s membership of the group”

(McCarthy 1988, 73). The obedience to the ‘boy code’ has severe consequences in terms of

gender roles and relations. It leads to the debasing of women but also, at the same time, to the

subjugation of men (Ibid.). In other words, the ‘boy code’ serves to maintain the traditional

masculine ideology, thereby reinforcing patriarchy and excluding other variants of

masculinity that diverge from this ‘normative’. Patriarchy, as Kahn (2009) describes, is a

“social system in which the social structure is literally ruled by men” (23). It is closely

connected to privilege and the idea of hegemonic masculinity (Ibid., 25).

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The concept of hegemonic masculinity was developed by R.W. Connell in 1995, and

since then “has become one of the, if not perhaps the, most influential set of ideas in

masculinity studies” (Horlacher 2011, 7). A hegemonic form of masculinity, in essence, is

“the most honoured or desired” form of masculinity, though not necessarily the one that is

most common or most comfortable (Connell 2000, 10). It may even be that this form of

masculinity is only practiced by a small number of men, yet, “the majority of men gain from

its hegemony, since they benefit from the patriarchal dividend, the advantage men in general

gain from the overall subordination of women” (Connell 2005, 79). The term ‘hegemony’ in

this concept derives from an “analysis of class relations” that was developed by Antonio

Gramsci, and denotes “the cultural dynamic by which a group claims and sustains a leading

position in social life” (Connell 2005, 77). Hegemonic masculinity is not permanent, as

Connell (2005) explains: [It] is not a fixed character type, always and everywhere the same. It is, rather, the masculinity that occupies the hegemonic position in a given pattern of gender relations, a position always contestable. (Ibid., 76)

The concept as such is responsible for controlling “the relationships not only between men

and women but also among individual groups of men” (Horlacher 2011, 8). Kahn (2009)

elaborates: Hegemonic masculinity suggests that men comply with social norms of masculinity by subordinating women (referred to as external hegemony) and marginalizing men (referred to as internal hegemony). Men comply in order for the system of patriarchy to continue with both advantages to men as a group and dire consequences to its individual members (31-2)

An example for the marginalisation of men in European and American society, as Connell

(2005) writes, is “the subordination of homosexual men”, who are oppressed through

exclusion, abuse, violence and economic discrimination (78). However, certain groups of

heterosexual men and boys are also “expelled from the circle” of legitimate masculinity and

punished, for example, by being called names such as wimp, nerd, sissy, mother’s boy and

geek (Ibid., 79). All these terms, as Connell (2005) suggests, demonstrate an obvious

“symbolic blurring with femininity” (Ibid.). Men who reject the hegemonic ideal, as Schrock

and Schwalbe (2009) write, “may feel compelled, when in all-male groups, to appear

emotionally detached, competitive, and willing to objectify women”, i.e. they adapt to

hegemonic masculinity in order to feel accepted and to avoid exclusion (287-8).

Returning to the ‘boy code’, Pollack (1999) defines four basic ‘rules’ as constituting

this code (Pollack 1999, 23-4). The first ‘rule’ emphasises qualities such as stability,

independence and endurance of hardships and pain, as well as the necessity of hiding fears,

weakness and insecurities. The second ‘rule’ encourages and justifies violent and aggressive

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behaviour for boys, purporting that such conduct is innate or biological. The third imperative

of the ‘boy code’ refers to the achievement of power, dominance and status and stresses the

importance of suppressing “failure and unhappiness” (Ibid., 24). Finally, the fourth ‘rule’ of

the code, forbids boys and men to express “feelings or urges seen (mistakenly) as ‘feminine’”

(Ibid.). This fourth imperative, as Kimmel and Davis (2011) write, is the reason for men’s

“fear of femininity”, which lies “[a]t the very heart of men’s [gender role] conflict” (7). The

four basic ‘rules’ of the ‘boy code’ are considered in the following analysis. Furthermore, one

additional imperative of ‘normative’ masculinity is included, namely the expression of sexual

desire for females, which frequently involves “the sexualization of women” (Schrock and

Schwalbe 2009, 282-5).

The first part of the analysis – contained within this subchapter – deals with the

behaviour of the male characters in the novels in order to find out whether they adhere to or

reject the ‘boy code’ and to what effects, but also includes references to the performance of

masculinity by a female character, Morgause in SOTRK. The second part, presented in the

subsequent subchapter, focuses on the experience of the cross-dressers in the novels, i.e.

Gawen/Gwen in SOTRK, and Gwyna/Gwyn and Peri/Peredur in HLA, and their enactment

and performance of masculinity. It should demonstrate how masculinity – and gender as a

whole – can be performed, how it is learned behaviour rather than innate qualities and thus

can be changed – for the better. A summary of the findings of the analysis can be found in the

final chapter of this thesis, which focuses on the questions of whether the two novels manage

to convey the message of ‘masculinity as a construct’ to their readers, and whether they are

able to deconstruct the ‘boy code’ and traditional masculine ideology.

“I can walk myself” – The “Sturdy Oak”-Rule The first ‘rule’, or imperative, of the ‘boy code’ is called the “sturdy oak”, and purports

that boys and men “should be stoic, stable and independent”, that they are required to avoid

showing pain or grieving openly (Pollack 1999, 23.). The term ‘stoic’, according to the

Oxford English Dictionary, refers to a “person who can endure pain or hardship without

showing their feelings or complaining” (OED). Compliance with this imperative can be

observed in Yolen’s novel, for example, when Agravaine, Morgause’s son and one of the

‘wicked’ characters in the book (and in the Arthurian tradition in general), is throwing up over

the railing of the ship on their journey to King Arthur’s court, because he is seasick. He does

not want to accept a remedy offered to him by their servant Hwyll, and rather endures the

pain:

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“Give him some hard bread,” Gawaine called to Hwyll. “And some fresh water.” It was the only thing he knew that would ease the spasms. Ever helpful, Hwyll reached into his pockets and drew out the remedy. But Agravaine waved the man away. (Yolen 2003, 25-6)

When Agravaine is sick again during the night and reluctantly accepts help from his brother

Gawaine, he even threatens him the next day. It seems he is too proud to acknowledge his

sickness and the fact that he accepted help from someone: Gawaine held his brother in his arms until morning brought a glassy sea. The minute the sea calmed and the sun rose, Agravaine pushed him away, saying, “If you tell anyone about last night, I shall kill you. Slowly. You will cry like a sow in labor.” (Ibid., 31)

On the other hand, Agravaine does not obey the ‘rule’ of not complaining. Realising that they

will be camping on their overland journey to Arthur’s court, instead of staying “in castles with

some great lords”, he complains the whole way: “He felt insulted and ill used and was not

choosy about whom he whined to.” (Ibid., 125). Later on, it is their twin brothers, Gareth and

Gaheris, who “turned out to be the whiners and complainers once the trip had gotten too long”

(Ibid., 129). Gawaine, however, one of the ‘agreeable’, ‘good’ characters in SOTRK, never

complains, although he has to endure the same conditions on the journey. “Why”, he asks

himself, “why am I cursed with such brothers?” (Ibid.). That Agravaine and the twins are

‘whiners and complainers’ is regarded as a negative character trait. Their non-compliance

with the first imperative of the ‘boy code’ is not necessarily punished, but their brothers’

annoyance suggests that he condemns their ‘whiny’ behaviour.

In Yolen’s story, Merlinnus, too, constantly suffers pains because of his old age, but

simply ignores them: [Merlinnus] headed back up the stairs to his tower room, five stories up […] His old knees creaked and popped and groaned as he mounted each riser, but he never stopped. Pain was an old campaigner on his body’s battlefield; they had walked long miles together. (Ibid., 50)

That “they had walked long miles together” (Ibid.) even suggests some kind of ‘comradeship’

between the two – pain is not regarded as something bad, it is seen as a companion. Later,

when the ‘boy’ Gawen finds the wizard lying motionless under a tree, he asks him: “Are you all right, grandfather?” Merlinnus sat up. […] He could feel a sharp, stabbing pain in both his hips. But being caught out by the youngster made him grumpy. “Why shouldn’t I be all right?” he answered gruffly. (Ibid., 82)

Like Agravaine, Merlinnus is also quick in refusing the help he is offered, as can be seen later

on in the novel: He tried to stand and found he could not. Unaccountably both his knees were too weak to hold him. Old, he thought. I have suddenly grown old. […] Gawen was quick to offer the mage his hand. “I can walk,” Merlinnus said testily. He certainly had not meant the king or the boy – and especially not the guards – to see his weakness. “I can walk myself.” (Ibid., 105)

Part of the “sturdy oak”-rule of the ‘boy code’ is the requirement for boys and men to

hide not only pain, but any weakness (Pollack 1999, 23). Confidence should be shown at all

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times, also to cover up fear. In SOTRK, it is Gawaine, for instance, who tries to hide his fear

when talking to his mother, the North Witch: For a moment he looked away. […] Then, fearing himself a coward, he looked back, steeling himself for the onslaught of her words. (Yolen 2003, 12)

Gawaine is clearly intimidated by his mother – a fact that is elaborated in the first pages of the

novel, which focuses on their disrupted relationship. However, he fights back his natural

reaction of turning away from his mother and faces her in order to prove that he is not afraid,

that he is not a ‘coward’. As Pollack (1999) writes, this requirement of the ‘boy code’ to hide

pain, fear and weakness “drains boys’ energy because it calls upon them to perform a constant

‘acting job’”, in which they pretend being confident when, in reality, they are anything but

(24). Gawaine’s confidence is only performed; his real feelings remain hidden – because any

weakness is considered unmanly. Which is why King Arthur is particularly proud of his

stepbrother, Kay, for hiding his fear of closed spaces. When they – together with other men –

enter the allegedly ‘magical’ cave, in which Merlinnus has placed his sword in the stone to be

found, Kay successfully covers his anxiety and is praised for it by Arthur: It was Kay who finally walked up to the stone and put his left hand on it, carefully […] Arthur had never been so proud of him. He knew that Kay hated caves, had always refused to explore them when they were boys. Kay was probably sweating profusely and glad that it was too dark for the men to notice. But his right hand and the torch were rock steady. […] Immediately Arthur put his arm around his stepbrother’s shoulders. “Kay, I never saw a braver thing than when you stepped up and clapped your hand on that stone.” “Really? Never?” Kay’s face lost its huffy look. (Yolen 2003, 199-201)

The king’s guards, too, are nervous when entering the ‘enchanted’ cave. One particular

guard’s reaction is being described in more detail: One man, a hero of three battles, turned the color of whey as they entered the mouth of the cave. But he did not complain. To do so would have meant daring his captain’s scorn, or his fellows’. (Ibid., 195)

According to this first imperative of the ‘boy code’, whimpering and crying are also not

tolerated and any boy or man behaving in such a way is considered equally unmanly. In

SOTRK, it is made clear early on that such behaviour is not suitable for a companion of King

Arthur: [Gawaine] banged on the door with his fist, and cried out, “Mother!” His voice rose to a whine. Hardly fitting, he thought angrily, for a companion of the High King. (Ibid., 4)

Gawaine is ashamed of such behaviour, also shortly after, when his mother reminds him how

he had behaved when she had sent him off to Arthur’s court for the first time: “Since you refuse to be king here, under my guidance, I will let you go off south,” she said, standing so that they were eye to eye. “But know this – you did not decide to go to Cadbury at the first. Do you remember complaining? Whining? Being afraid?” He did, but did not want to acknowledge it. (Ibid., 9)

The reason for not wanting to acknowledge such behaviour might be that Gawaine has come

to prefer King Arthur’s court to his actual home, but linking this episode to the one mentioned

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before, it appears that he is embarrassed of having shown such feelings. Later, when Gawaine

hurts his brother Agravaine in a fight, he is horrified and starts to cry. The only reason he is

not embarrassed about it, it is said, is because in his shock he does not realise that he is

crying: He knelt by his brother, shouting, “Breathe, you knave, breathe.” He was crying as he shouted, the tears coursing down his face, which would have embarrassed him even more had he realized it. (Ibid., 133)

Merlinnus also cries once in Yolen’s story. However, he does so in front of the oak tree,

which is described as the spiritual place to which the mage goes to talk about his worries and

to receive advice: Merlinnus wept hot and bitter tears as if he were a child. Then he snuffled and dried his eyes on the hem of his robe before going back to the castle. (Ibid., 266)

That he stops crying and dries his eyes before returning to court suggests that he is

embarrassed of his tears and fears they might be seen as a weakness. The only character who

is ‘allowed’ to cry in SOTRK is King Arthur. When his beloved dog dies in a fight, the king

openly expresses his feelings: Arthur knelt beside the brachet and picked her up tenderly. Her intestines, hot and bloody and tangled, spilled out across his arms. “Na, na!” the king crooned, weeping, holding the dog as if she were a baby, rocking her to his chest. The dog shuddered and whimpered. “Na, na. Go gentle, my angel, my lovely, my pet.” (Ibid., 166-7)

Whining and weeping is not manly, it is considered as something that children do – as is

illustrated in the quote about Merlinnus mentioned above. It is how little boys behave: [Morgause] thought about the dead man in her hidden dungeon. He had been a spy; she was sure of it. Even though he’d not admitted any such, just wept for his mother at the last. They always do that, she thought. Men are but little boys when it comes to their mothers. (Ibid., 17)

Gawaine also appears to be of the opinion that it is only boys who whine, in this case his

fifteen-year-old brother, Agravaine: Gawaine was surprised to see how hairy his brother’s legs were. Why, he is a man, Gawaine thought, and not a boy any longer. […] “Have I had the flux? Was it the sea voyage? I hate the sea!” Agravaine’s voice was hoarse and whiney. A hairy boy, Gawaine corrected himself. (Ibid., 142)

Again, Agravaine begins to complain and is disparaged for it by his older brother, Gawaine (if

only in his thoughts). His whining means that Agravaine should not be considered as a grown-

up man. However, even little boys are disparaged for whining in SOTRK: Medraut was a snot nose, always whining, always wanting more than his share of everything: food, clothes, jewels, attention. He was spoiled, mean-tempered, sly, and even at six still clung to his mother’s skirts. (Ibid., 25)

‘Clinging to one’s mother’s skirts’ is a pejorative expression and suggests that for boys, being

close to one’s mother is regarded as shameful. Indeed, as Pollack (1999) explains, the idea

that “boys need to achieve ‘masculine autonomy’” early on in life is still widely accepted in

contemporary society and seen as “a prerequisite for a boy’s healthy psychological

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development” (26). Boys are required to withdraw from their mothers, being taught that

closeness to them “is something shameful” (Ibid.). In SOTRK this achievement of ‘masculine

autonomy’ is also referred to, when Morgause watches her sons leave for King Arthur’s court: […] she had waved to the boys from the shore. But they, so intent on the trip, had scarcely noticed. She had had their backs, not their faces. For a moment she thought about that, how boys always leave their mothers eagerly, hearts set on the next adventure. (Yolen 2003, 24)

The fact that the word ‘always’ is inserted, further suggests that boys’ eagerness to leave their

mothers and go on adventures is the norm.

In Here Lies Arthur, incidents regarding the first ‘rule’ of the boy code can also be

found. However, while in SOTRK these values appear to have been ‘internalised’ and thus are

portrayed as being the norm, the ‘sturdy oak’-rule – as well as the other imperatives of the

‘boy code’, as can be seen throughout the analysis – are referred to in Reeve’s novel on

purpose. The purpose being the critique of such ‘rules’, which should raise readers’

awareness of gender as being constructed by society, and gendered behaviour as being

learned by the individual. An example for the ‘sturdy-oak-rule’ of the ‘boy code’ in HLA can

be found in a scene after Bedwyr – Arthur’s nephew and one of the boys in his war-band –

has been wounded in a fight and cannot walk properly anymore. The protagonist Gwyna – in

her female role as the maid of Arthur’s wife – would have liked to have helped him, but,

having herself lived as a boy, she decides against it, knowing that Bedwyr would not accept it

anyway: Watching him go, it was all I could do not to run and give him my arm to lean on. But I wasn’t his friend Gwyn any more, and he was a man now. It would shame him if a girl offered him help. (Reeve 2007, 177)

Later, when Bedwyr falls down when trying to walk again, Gwyna describes the situation: Bedwyr was wobbly as a baby and as slow as an old, old man. Halfway to the cistern he fell, and knelt there, sobbing. […] And I stood in the shadows behind the folded-back doors, and watched, and didn’t move or speak, because Bedwyr would hate it if he knew someone had seen him crying like a child. (Ibid.)

Reading these passages without the proper context provided in the novel would suggest the

endorsement of the first ‘rule’ of the ‘boy code’. As can be seen throughout the analysis,

however, such episodes are inserted on purpose in Reeve’s novel and offer a critical stance

towards such ‘normative’ values of masculinity.

“I have a sword, too” – The “Give ‘em hell”-Imperative The second imperative of the ‘boy code’ is called “Give ‘em hell” and refers to the

assumption that boys need to be daring and attracted to violence (Pollack 1999, 24). As

Harper (2007) states, “boldness and aggression are often associated with masculinity in many

cultural contexts” (522). Research has suggested that traditional notions of masculinity are

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indeed closely tied to “patterns of dominance, bullying, and other acts of violence” (Ibid.,

511). Schrock and Schwalbe (2009), too, stress aggression and violence as “[o]ne of the most

important lessons about signifying manhood”, referring to sports as frequently reinforcing

violent behaviour (282). This second ‘rule’ of the ‘boy code’, Pollack (1999) writes, is rooted

in one of the major myths of masculinity, namely in the saying that ‘boys will be boys’, which

contends that boys’ macho-behaviour is innate and biological, that it is ‘in their nature’ to act

violently (24). This saying, as Nodelman (2002) explains, is frequently used to respond to and

justify boys’ violent behaviour, thereby perpetuating the stereotype that “aggressive or

antisocial behavior is an inherent and unchangeable aspect of maleness” (2). This stereotype

is also sustained in literature. In American fiction, for instance, as Armgenol (2007) writes,

the image of the violent male has been “one of the most recurrent images of men” since the

nineteenth century, commonly appearing in the genre of the adventure story (81).

Furthermore, research into popular twentieth-century children’s books has shown that “male

characters were typically portrayed as assertive and aggressive” (Schrock and Schwalbe 2009,

282).

Violence and aggression play an important part in SOTRK, in which Agravaine is

portrayed as being particularly aggressive. He is described as using “horses and men with

equal disdain” (Yolen 2003, 26) and often depicted in acts of violence and aggression: Agravaine was always sour. In fact, on landing, Agravaine slapped his manservant for being slow, then after that, whipped the horse he was presented with, when it was not as soft-mouthed as he would have liked, or as handsome. Finally he swore vehemently at Hwyll. (Ibid., 32)

Agravaine’s violent behaviour in this scene is directly contrasted with King Arthur’s

benevolence. When a messenger arrives at Cadbury castle, the young king inquires about his

wellbeing, whether he has been assaulted along the way and how his back and legs are. The

messenger replies: “Fine, my king. Though I cannot say the same for all my horses. It took four.” “Any of them living still?” asked Arthur, suddenly grim, for he loved the large-footed beasts and hated anyone’s having to use them so hard, even when he understood the necessity. (Ibid., 39)

King Arthur is thus portrayed in direct opposition to Agravaine, who abuses and mistreats

both humans and animals. As Gawaine tells his brother repeatedly, such behaviour is not

accepted at Cadbury. Besides, it is not considered “mete that a prince should act so cruelly”

(Ibid., 27). The class-dimension, too, becomes obvious in this statement. Agravaine, however,

does not listen. He also pronounces death threats on several occasions throughout the novel

and even kills one man – though his intentions might have been ‘noble’, since he wanted to

save King Arthur from a man who was trying to kill the king with an enchanted dagger:

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Gawaine kicked the dagger from the man’s hand […] At the same time, Agravaine, his face a fury, swung his foot up and crunched down on the old thief’s face, sending the pen straight through into his brain. “Stop!” Gawen cried. “The mage will want to speak to him.” But it was too late. The thief was dead. (Ibid., 185)

Later, when the Orkney brothers’ servant, Hwyll, died – and it was found out that he had been

the assassin the North Witch had sent to Arthur’s court to kill the king –, Agravaine is left

cold by his death. While Gawaine wants to bury Hwyll, Agravaine has another suggestion: “What matters is that the king is not harmed,” Gawaine said at last. “And that we take responsibility for burying Hwyll quickly.” Agravaine turned on him. “Why should we? Let him rot. Stick his head on a pike and let the crows have his eyes.” (Ibid., 313)

Agravaine’s violent and aggressive behaviour may be regarded as a deliberate

enactment of masculinity, an act to appear particularly masculine and ‘manly’. As Schrock

and Schwalbe (2009) write, in order to “be credited as a man, what an individual male must

do […] is put on a convincing manhood act” (279). This, it seems, is exactly what Agravaine

is trying to do in Yolen’s novel. As becomes clear in a conversation between him and his

brother Gawaine, Agravaine desperately wants to feel like a ‘man’, despite his young age of

fifteen. When Gawaine refers to him as a boy, he replies: “I am no boy. […] I have a dog, a horse, a house, and a woman at home. What more makes a man?” (Yolen 2003, 127)

When Gawaine tells him that he was provided with all these ‘things’ – of which a woman is

apparently considered one – by his mother, Agravaine answers: “I have a sword, too.” (Ibid.)

His brother replies: “You can have a sword and whip and a hard hand. That still does not

make you a man.” (Ibid.) It appears, Agravaine also acts overtly masculine in situations in

which he feels afraid, for instance, when he is in the infirmary at Arthur’s court after he has

been injured. When the infirmarer tells Agravaine that he needs to let blood, he falls into a

rage: Agravaine jumped up and grabbed him around the throat from the back. “I said not to touch me, you old fraud, you sorry infirmity, you excuse for lechery!” he screamed. […] The guards tumbled into the small room, separated the three, bound Agravaine’s hands behind him, then looked to Kay for guidance. Before Kay could think what to do, Agravaine spit at him. The boy’s eyes were wild, steely grey and dark blue […] (Ibid., 149-50)

He also threatens to kill ‘everybody’: “I am not worried. But he should be. I will kill him.” “Who?” Hwyll’s soft voice asked. “The infirmarer. The guards. Everybody. […] There is nowhere to sit in this piss hole. My head hurts. My throat. Are they laughing at me? I will kill them. I need to lie down.” He threw his head back and howled like an animal. “My prince, my prince,” Hwyll cautioned, “do not let them see you this way.” (Ibid., 153)

This example shows how Agravaine tries to cover up his insecurity and fear of being laughed

at by acting excessively violent. That others should not see him behaving in such a way

suggests that such behaviour is indeed anything but accepted at Arthur’s court – and, by

implication, in real life.

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As it turns out, Agravaine might also suffer from self-esteem issues, attributable to his

being “a second son” (Ibid., 128): Gawaine sighed. “Go to bed, Agravaine.” “Are you telling me man to child?” The voice was still sullen, and slightly dangerous, too. He was drunk on anger and years of being the second son. (Ibid.)

Hwyll, the Orkney brother’s servant, has a suggestion for Gawaine on how to gain control

over his brother: “That he is second to me is not my fault.” […] “Not your fault, no. But is is your duty to overrule him,” Hwyll said. “With a harder hand than his if necessary. […] Agravaine only follows one rule.” Gawaine waited, though he knew what Hwyll was going to say. “Power.” (Ibid., 128-129)

It seems, however, Gawaine does not need Hwyll’s advice. His use of power and a ‘hard

hand’ on his brother is evident already earlier on. While Agravaine certainly is the more

aggressive one of the brothers, Gawaine, too, is assertive and thereby tries to keep his brother

under control. For example, when he sees how Agravaine whips a stable boy, his motive

might be noble, but his reaction is rather violent: Gawaine leaped off his own horse, ran over to his brother, and hauled him to the ground. It was so sudden a rush, Agravaine was not ready for it […] Agravaine rose heavily from the ground, but Gawaine was on his feet, sword drawn, and waiting. “Get back on your horse,” he said, his voice a low grumble. “Do not try to attack me brother. I am older and taller and bigger. I have not been throwing up the contents of my stomach for two days. And I have been practicing my sword strokes with the greatest master of Britain.” (Ibid., 34)

Violence, as Connell (2005) states, may “become a way of claiming or asserting

masculinity in group struggles” (83) – as can be seen in the episode mentioned above. It can

also be used to threaten others. The constant tension between Gawaine and Agravaine is

obvious: “Shut up, brother,” Agravaine advised loudly, “or I will whip you as well.” […] “You will do no such thing,” Gawaine answered, but so low only Agravaine could hear. Still, Agravaine understood the threat in the quiet steely voice and did not speak further. […] “Will he try to whip you, Gawaine?” asked Gareth and Gaheris together. Gawaine guessed they were less curious than hopeful. “Not if he values his whip arm,” Gawaine said. And not as sick as he is, Gawaine thought. (Yolen 2003, 32)

Eventually, the tension between the two brothers culminates in a fight. Gawaine, having

watched Agravaine abusing his horse again, tells him to get off the horse and walk,

whereupon Agravaine unexpectedly attacks him. Gawaine is shocked – and also embarrassed

– and punches back, by accident hitting his brother in the throat, which leaves him

unconscious. In this scene, Gawaine, though generally not depicted as an excessively violent

character in the book, can again be regarded as complying with the second rule of the ‘Boy

Code’. He feels ashamed and embarrassed by his brother’s blow, and his hit is described as “a

strong right fuelled by both anger and shame” (Ibid., 132). Nevertheless, immediately after,

Gawaine is horrified by what he has done and feels tremendously guilty:

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“I will not lose my temper again,” he promised aloud. “I will only seek the right. I will be kind to my brothers. I will treat all men as my brothers. And my brothers as good men. I will…” (Ibid., 134)

His guilt does not last long, though, apparently: But at that point, exhausted and emotionally spent, he lost thread of his prayer and only felt stupid, insignificant and weak. (Ibid., 134-5)

For boys, fighting among peers is not regarded as something ‘unhealthy’. As Brod

(2011) explains, research has revealed that “elementary schoolteachers will move much more

quickly to break up a fight between girls than between boys, because girls are not supposed to

fight but boys, after all, will be boys” (20). “Such acceptance and tolerance”, Brod elaborates,

“ends up functioning as encouragement for male violence” (Ibid.). The acceptance of fighting

can also be seen in the reaction of Gawaine and Agravaine’s twin brothers: At first, the twins had cheered the fight, calling out for Gawaine and Agravaine indiscriminately. But when they saw that Agravaine was really in trouble, they jumped from their horses and ran over to help […]. (Yolen 2003, 133)

This suggests that the ‘fun’ of fighting only stops when someone is really injured. Later,

when they arrive at Arthur’s court, the twins “seemed strengthened by the results of the fight”

and “talked to anyone who would listen about” it, spinning it into an epic tale that suddenly

“included a green knight, several evil swordsmen, a dragon, a chimera, a wizard, and a fair

lady to be saved” (Ibid., 135). Gawaine does not rectify this false account of the fight,

thinking that “[s]urely the twins’ version was preferable to the truth – that he had beaten his

brother who now lay sick unto death in the infirmary” (Ibid.:137). Gawaine’s guilty

conscience about the fight with Agravaine, however, starts to disappear when the king tells

him about his fight with Kay. “It was my temper, more than his. Really,” Gawaine said. “I did not mean to hurt him.” Only the more he talked, the worse things sounded, and Arthur knew he had to intervene. “I broke Kay’s nose once, and though he has long forgiven me, I have never forgiven myself. “Really?” Gawaine’s face suddenly smoothed out. “Really,” Arthur said, though the circumstances had been quite different, because he had been younger and smaller than Kay and had fought him over a sword they had both wanted. Kay won the battle simply by falling heavily on top of Arthur, blood spurting from his nose till Arthur had agreed to end the battle so Kay’s nose could be seen to. (Ibid., 138-9)

Later, Gawaine hears about the same fight again – but this time form Kay’s perspective: “A fight between my brother and me,” Gawaine said, his cheeks suddenly burnished as if with fire. “Did you get the better of him?” Kay asked. “Yes, but…” Kay smiled, his face almost handsome with memory. “I got the better of Arthur once. A long fight but a fair one. Just to show him who was boss. I am the older, you see. Got that out between us, and never a moment’s trouble since. […] I broke his nose and when it was put to right, told him we would never fight again.” He grinned broadly. “And so we haven’t.” Remembering Arthur’s side of the same story, Gawaine said simply, “That was very brave of you, seeing how big Arthur is and all.” Kay’s grin went away and his face got a bit grey. (Ibid., 147)

Kay’s reaction to Gawaine’s fight with his brother – whether he ‘got the better of him’ – also

serves to downplay the incident and fighting in general.

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War and battles play a less significant role in SOTRK than in Reeve’s novel. The stance

on this issue – as part of the second ‘rule’ of the boy code – is thus harder to determine. There

is one incident, however, in which Arthur and Gawaine ride out to hunt and are attacked by

strangers. Both men – despite their young age of twenty-two and eighteen, respectively – are

“well trained at this sort of bloody work” and so manage to win the fight even though “they

were outnumbered” (Ibid., 166). The scene is described with vivid imagery: Gawaine was painted in blood, his blond hair matted with it. He gestured to the side. All six bodies lay separated from their heads. The ground was soaked with their blood. Standing, Arthur said none too gently, “I am more Roman than Celt, Gwalchmei. We do not take heads here.” Gawaine dropped the terrible thing on the ground and squatted down beside it. Then he turned his face and vomited into the grass. (Ibid., 167)

While Gawaine is clearly disgusted with the view of what he has done, Arthur appears to be

calm: “First kill?” he asked gently. Gawaine nodded. “It never gets easier,” said Arthur. “But it never gets harder, either.” (Ibid., 167)

This statement suggests that the six men will not remain the last ones that Gawaine will kill,

and almost ‘normalises’ the act of killing other people. So does the advice that Arthur gives

Gawaine shortly after: “[…] Now I just want to clean up. And Gawaine, I suggest you do likewise. Blood under the fingernails is especially hard to dislodge.” (Ibid., 172)

Gawaine’s killing of the attackers is also justified in that it was due to his ‘survival instinct’. It

is said that he has reacted in such a way to defend his own life: But Gawaine had done the right thing. His own life had been threatened. He had to fight the men. (Ibid., 172)

Hourihan (1997) writes that, traditionally, in hero stories, “it is his status as a great warrior,

able to destroy the enemies of his people, which marks the hero out” (98). Gawaine might not

be described as ‘a great warrior’ in the novel, but perhaps this is what he has done in this

scene – he has destroyed the enemies of King Arthur.

Generally, it has to be noted that excessive violent and aggressive behaviour in SOTRK

is mostly found in ‘villainous’ characters rather than in characters that are portrayed in a good

light. As Hourihan (1997) writes, “[t]he qualities ascribed to the hero and his opponents

reveal much about what has been valued and what has been regarded as inferior or evil in

Western culture” (Ibid., 4). The fact that excessive violent behaviour is ascribed to opponents

rather than ‘hero’ characters in Yolen’s novel might thus be viewed as a sign that at least part

of this second imperative of the ‘boy code’ is losing its appeal, that it is a value of masculinity

that is no longer acceptable and needs to be changed. However, as above-mentioned examples

show, ‘good’ characters, such as Gawaine, also comply with the second ‘rule’ of the code at

times. Fighting among peers is portrayed as ‘normal’, or in Hwyll’s words: “Ah – two stags in

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a grove” (Yolen 2003, 145). The act of killing someone is also ‘normalised’ and seen as being

part of ‘everyday business’ in a knight’s life. At least in one scene, in which the twins

embellish their brothers’ fight, the reader gets a glimpse at how such violent acts are being

exaggerated and glorified and how such versions are preferred to the actual truth. This issue

lies at the heart of Reeve’s Arthurian narrative.

While wars and battles play a less significant role in SOTRK, the troubles related to and

caused by them are fundamental themes of Reeve’s HLA. As in SOTRK, the most violent and

aggressive character in Reeve’s novel is a ‘villain’. Against popular expectations this

character is Arthur. The protagonist, Gwyna, is also surprised when, in the very beginning of

the novel, she realises that it is Arthur who has attacked her master’s premises: “You know who those riders are, Gwyna? They are the war-band of Arthur. You’ve heard of Arthur, haven’t you?” Well of course I had. I never thought to meet him in my own woods, though. Arthur was someone out of stories. He fought giants and rescued maidens and outfoxed the Devil. He didn’t ride about burning people’s shippens down. (Reeve 2007, 14)

Soon, when Gwyna, disguised as Myrddin’s servant Gwyn, travels with Arthur and his war-

band, she also finds out about his aggressive nature: The landowner looked grim, and said he had already paid tribute. “Then you’ll pay it again,” said Arthur, and he jumped down off his horse and walked past Myrddin and knocked the man down. He didn’t draw his sword, just kept kicking and stamping until the man’s face was one soft mask of blood and his teeth were scattered all about in the dry grass, yellow as gorse-flowers. (Ibid., 60)

The vivid account of this scene clearly demonstrates Arthur’s unjust and violent behaviour. In

another episode of the novel, Arthur is in control of the town Aquae Sulis – after, so it is

hinted at, he has deceitfully killed the chieftain of the town, Valerius. A sudden attack by

raiders, in which Bedwyr is wounded, makes Arthur furious, but not because his nephew has

been hurt: Arthur was red and shouting when we found him. Striding through the forum, […] demanding to know how the raiders had been allowed to come and shame him at the gates of his own place. Knocking down any man who tried to give him an answer. […] The insult hurt Arthur more than the raid itself. The thought of men telling how he’d been outwitted. (Ibid., 169)

Arthur immediately wants revenge for the raid, and to teach Calchvynydd (the place where

the raiders came from) that “he was a man they should respect” (Ibid., 172): Stories are all well and good, he told Myrddin, but if you want men to respect you, you have to show them strength. They burn one of your holdings, you burn two of theirs. (Ibid.)

Maelwas, king of Dumnonia, describes Arthur as a “wild, roving man, like Uthr before him”,

stating that he is “[m]ore robber than soldier”, a “looter of churches” and a “cattle-thief”

(Ibid., 123). Indeed, as Gwyna describes, Arthur does not care about “forging great alliances”

once he has Aquae Sulis under his protection, instead he is “happier raiding, and filling his

hall with other men’s treasure” (Ibid, 195-6).

Arthur also commits domestic violence – against his wife, Gwenhwyfar:

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In the first months of their marriage when she was so cold towards him, he used to hit her. He would make the blood of the Aureliani bloom under her skin in purple bruises. She is his wife, after all, so he’s a right to bend her to his will. (Ibid., 178)

Arthur is the only character in Reeve’s novel who abuses his wife; and there are none in

Yolen’s novel either. The other men in HLA are never described in such situations and are

said to be fond of their wife and children. Even Arthur starts feeling bad about his abuse of

Gwenhwyfar: But the more he hit her, the worse he felt. That’s why he keeps his distance. Let her have her own life […] She’s just one of the things that a powerful man needs. (Ibid., 178)

As Flood (2004) explains, domestic violence, i.e. “interpersonal violence enacted in domestic

settings, family relationships and intimate relationships”, first received public attention during

the feminist movements (234). The term can have different (though related) meanings, but is

mostly used to refer “to violence by a man to his wife, or female sexual partner or ex-partner”

(Ibid.). Feminist scholarship argues that and criticises how “men’s violence against women is

‘normalized’ in some contexts, in that it is the expression of violence-supportive cultural

values gendered power relations, and gender roles” (Ibid., 236). Constructing “masculinity as

aggressive and sexist” contributes to male-to-female domestic violence, as Flood explains: Violence against women is more likely in cultures in which manhood is culturally defined as linked to dominance, toughness, or male honor. In contexts where ‘being a man’ involves aggressiveness, the repression of empathy, and a sense of entitlement to power, those men who are violent are acting out the dictates of what it means to be a ‘normal’ male. (Ibid.)

Whether such values as aggressiveness and violence are perpetuated in children’s books, can

thus indeed lead to consequences on a much larger scale, namely the maintenance of

hegemonic masculinity.

Arthur’s violent and aggressive behaviour culminates in the killing of his nephew,

Bedwyr, when he finds out that he has been having an affair with his wife, Gwenhwyfar,

while he was away. Reeve vividly describes how Bedwyr is killed by Arthur and again

demonstrates Arthur’s wild, raging behaviour: Later people said it was a challenge, but it didn’t sound like a challenge to me. Arthur shouted back, no words, just a roar. There came scuffling sounds, a clatter of kicked stones, a noise like a hurt dog whining. […] On the floor lay a red and white thing that jerked like a killed pig. Arthur stood over it. He raised Caliburn high and grunted as he hacked down. […] Arthur was bellowing again, shouting at his men to look at what became of traitors. […] While Arthur’s men stood at the pool’s edge and watched as Arthur swung Bedwyr’s head by its hair and flung it from him […] and the waters took it with a feathery splash. (Reeve 2007, 204-5)

Later, Arthur tries to justify his actions, and even gains approval by his companions: He spreads his big hands. “You saw how it was. You think I wanted to kill the boy? My own kinsman? My sister’s son? But he betrayed me. When a man steals your own wife, what are you to do?” […] Cei says miserably, “He was my kinsman too, Arthur. He brought death on himself, I know that. There’s not a man in the world who’d blame you for killing him, after what he did. But it was the manner of it. You threw Bedwyr’s head in the spring. Think how it looks…” “I was angry!” shouts Arthur, growing angry again. “He betrayed me! My own kinsman! Do you stop to think when a red rage is upon you?” (Ibid., 211)

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Arthur uses his ‘red rage’ as an excuse for killing his nephew. Gwyna wants to tell Medrawt,

Bedwyr’s brother, about what Arthur has done. “Blood must have blood”, Gwyna thinks.

“You kill a man’s brother, he’s got to kill you, it’s only natural.” (Ibid., 207). Having lived

among these warriors for such a long time, she seems to have internalised their values and

assumptions. In the following days, Arthur betrays his brother Cei and some of his other men,

who die in a fight instigated by Arthur; he has the bishop of Aquae Sulis beaten “and let[s] his

warriors help themselves to the treasures in his church” (Ibid., 217). Finally, he fights

Medrawt and his followers – a battle of which no one comes out alive. Before that fight,

Myrddin has died as well. The only two characters of the ‘main cast’ that survive in Reeve’s

novel are Peredur and Gwyna.

Braudy (2003) writes that there is a clear “connection between the history of

masculinity and the history of violence, especially as expressed in war” (xv). “Both war and

masculinity”, Braudy explains, “are ideas shaped by a long interwoven history” (Ibid., xvii).

Goldstein (2003) further states that war has always been “a male domain” and that war

service “is often construed as a test of manhood – primarily of courage – that ‘real men’ are

expected to perform” (Goldstein 2003, 107-8). Nagel (2007) also points out this issue: The historical interdependence of war and hegemonic masculinity buttresses making war as essential to making men out of boys, legitimates war as the only true crucible of manhood, and exploits men’s desires and anxieties about successfully enacting masculinity (Ducat 2004). (627)

War is thus closely connected to masculinity and influences how the concept is defined.

Braudy (2003) elaborates: By its emphasis on the physical prowess of men enhanced by their machines, by its distillation of national identity […] war enforces an extreme version of male behavior as the ideal model for all such behavior. (xvi)

War is linked to “conceptions of manly honour and power”, which makes it difficult for

society to imagine what manhood would be without it (Nagel 2007, 627). Goldstein (2003)

further suggests that “[w]ithout war, cultural patterns of sex and gender would be

substantially different” (115). The importance of the portrayal of war in children’s fiction – in

general and in connection to masculinity – thus should not be underestimated.

As already discussed above, war plays an important role in Reeve’s Arthurian narrative;

it is criticised throughout the novel. Instead of being glorified, battles are portrayed as they

really are: gruesome, bloody and anything but heroic. The episode in SOTRK mentioned

above, in which the twins embellish the story of their brothers’ fight, only hints at what the

reader experiences in HLA, which focuses on the vast discrepancy between the truth and the

stories that are being told. Myrddin is Arthur’s bard, he spins tales about his brave and

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glorious victories and accomplishments, which in reality either have never happened, have

happened to somebody else, or were simply brutal and inglorious encounters of war-bands

fighting over land and treasure. These stories serve to convince the public that Arthur is a

‘hero’, that he is the one that will unite Britain and return it to its former glory, but also to

instil in Arthur’s warriors – and those to be – a sense of and longing for bravery, heroism and

courage. Often they sit around the campfire and listen to Myrddin’s stories: [Myrddin] told us the tale of another hunt that Arthur had ridden out on, and somehow the real hunt merged into a magical hunt where Arthur and his companions took the places of the old heroes, and the boar they were hunting became Twrch Trwyth, the great boar of the island of Britain, and they chased him deeper and deeper into dark old thickets of story until Arthur speared him and snatched from between his two ears the magic comb. (Reeve 2007, 66)

Gwyn(a) tells about the effect of Myrddin’s story on Arthur’s war-band: And when I thought about the tales Myrddin had spun for us in the firelight I found it wasn’t so hard, after all, to imagine myself a great hunter. […] The spell of the story was still at work in us, and we were all eager to prove what heroes we were. (Ibid., 67)

Similarly, after a tough battle, the warriors are at first not in the mood of listening to

Myrddin’s glorified stories – it seems “as if the memory of the real thing was too fresh in

everybody’s minds for the old boasts and poems to work their magic” (Ibid., 103). However,

when Myrddin starts telling his tales, the situation changes: But when he had eaten, Myrddin took out his harp and spun the day’s fight into stories, listing the brave deeds that each man had done, leaving out none of them, not even Bedwyr. […] And slowly, as we listened, we started to forget how afraid we’d all been and began to remember it as he told it: Arthur’s shining victory. (Ibid.)

As can be seen from these examples, Gwyn(a), too, is positively affected by Myrddin’s tales

of bravery, even though she well knows the stories of the bard are not true. She knows this

from her own experience.

In the beginning of Reeve’s novel, Gwyna helps Myrddin to trick a potential enemy of

Arthur into believing that the ‘Old Gods’ are on Arthur’s side. She plays the role of the lady

of the lake, handing Arthur the sword Caliburn from under the waters. Her act is so

convincing that even Arthur and his men – except for Cei, who knows about Myrddin’s plan –

believe it really was the lake divinity who handed Arthur his sword. Gwyna is disguised as a

boy and re-named Gwyn by Myrddin, and joins Arthur on his travels, becoming good friends

with his nephew, Bedwyr. Bedwyr, too, believes in the lady of the lake – and Gwyna lets him: He believed the old gods were on Arthur’s side just as he believed that winter would follow autumn and the sun would rise tomorrow. And I thought that maybe that believing would make him strong and brave and lucky when the fighting came, and maybe without it he’d be killed, or turn and run away, which was worse than being killed. So I kept quiet […] (Ibid., 93)

The notion that ‘running away’ from a fight is considered ‘cowardly’ is picked up again later

in the novel, when Myrddin tells Gwyna that Arthur is sending some men away on a fight to

distract them from the mayhem caused by Bedwyr’s death. Gwyna asks:

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“What if they won’t go?” Myrddin scowled at me. “Have you forgotten all you learned about the lives of men? Of course they’ll go. They would look like cowards, else. Anyway, Arthur promised them a good fight, and a share of the booty. […]” (Ibid., 220)

Again, without proper contextualisation, these statements would seem to enforce the ‘boy

code’. However, that Gwyna has learned about the lives of men implies the constructed

nature of ‘manhood’ and ‘masculinity’. Later in the novel, when Gwyn(a) and Peredur – who

grew up as a girl because his mother wanted to prevent him from becoming a warrior – run

away in the middle of a battle, this issue is taken up again. Peredur says to Gwyn(a): “We ran

away, Gwyn. We shouldn’t have run. It was womanish.” (Ibid., 241). Gwyn(a) replies: “It’s natural,” I tried telling him. “You couldn’t have fought them. They were too many. They caught us by surprise.” Of course he didn’t believe me. He’d bathed too long in stories of heroes and battles. In the stories, running away is the worst disgrace. If ever anyone told the story of that morning’s fight, Peredur and Gwyn would be remembered as cowards, who’d run like women. And being a coward is worse than being dead. (Ibid.)

Peredur does not even want to return to the battlefield: “The others will be somewhere around. We’ll find them…” “I don’t want to. They’ll know we were cowards. We ran away.” (Ibid.)

Reeve draws attention to this fear that men have, that men learn – the fear of being considered

a ‘coward’, as ‘womanly’, when not participating in violence.

As can be seen, Reeve’s novel clearly criticises the glorification of war and violence,

portraying it as it really is. Already in the beginning of HLA, Gwyna describes how “[w]ar’s a

thing for autumn, when […] men can be spared to go harrying into other lands and carrying

off other men’s grain and cattle” (Ibid., 4), suggesting that war is no glorious enterprise at all,

but rather a useless contest of who can steal more from whom. Later on, in Gwyn(a)’s first

battle, she experiences first-hand how fighting is in reality as opposed to how it is presented

in stories: The battle wraps me in its noise and reek. I get up quick, not wanting to be kicked to death. Where’s Dewi? This isn’t like the battles Myrddin tells about, where brave warriors fight against another. It’s more like shoving through a packed marketplace. […] It was more like a hunt than a battle. (Ibid., 98-100)

Gwyn(a) should not even have been in this battle, since Myrddin had forbidden her to join the

others, telling her that she should stay with him, “safe from harm” (Ibid., 96). However,

Gwyn(a) decides to disobey him, because, in her words, “boys will be boys, even the ones

who are only girls dressed up: that’s one of the rules of the world” (Ibid.). Disobeying

Myrddin is “a fearful thing, but not as fearful as facing the jeers of all the others calling me a

coward” (Ibid.). The deliberate performance or enactment of masculinity by a female

character is thus demonstrated in this scene (and further discussed in the subsequent

subchapter on cross-dressing). Gwyn(a) is a girl disguised as a boy, but in order to be

regarded as a ‘real’ boy, she has to join in the battle to avoid being condemned and excluded

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by the others. In the beginning of the novel, when Gwyna is still a girl, she does not even dare

to disobey Myrddin: I didn’t think I had the courage to do what Myrddin had ordered, but I hadn’t the courage to disobey him, either. (Ibid., 26)

Later, as a boy, she decides that being excluded and called a ‘coward’ is worse. However,

Gwyn(a) quickly regrets her decision – even before the actual fighting has started: But we all hear the shouting blur into a roar as the attackers surge forward into the ford. It’s that battle-noise again, that ugly music woven out of shouting voices and hoof-falls and the clang of swords. I start to wish I’d stayed with my master. (Ibid., 97)

When they return from the battlefield, Myrddin asks Gwyn(a) whether she has enjoyed the

battle: I nodded, of course, but he knew I was lying. “I am never, never, never going into a war again,” I promised myself. And I felt sorry for Bedwyr and the other boys. They must have been as scared as me, but they’d be men soon and would have to keep on plunging into fights like that until they got into one they would never come out of. (Ibid., 101-2)

Reeve’s narrative criticises how boys and men only live to become warriors. A ‘real’

man is one who fights, and fighting turns a boy into a man. This wrong assumption can best

be observed in the character development of Bedwyr throughout the novel. Bedwyr, it seems,

becomes more ‘manly’ after his first battle, in which he has even killed someone: “We won,” he says, but he doesn’t sound triumphant. He says it like a question, as if he can’t quite believe that any of us is still alive. “I killed a man. I killed him Gwyn. We won.” He hugs me hard. He smells of sweat and other people’s blood. And when my face presses against his I feel a prickling where his first, thin, boyish beard is starting to grow. (Ibid., 100)

The beard is a symbol of Bedwyr’s growing up into manhood. Also, from this battle on,

Bedwyr is allowed to join Arthur and his companions on the hunt. Gwyn(a) describes: “They

took Bedwyr with them – he was almost one of them, since Badon-fight.” (Ibid., 113) When

Gwyna returns to Aquae Sulis as a girl, she hardly recognises her ‘boyhood’-friend Bedwyr: He was a warrior now, with a warrior’s windy vanity, and five notches cut in the edge of his shield to show the men he’d killed. He’d put his life as a boy far behind him, stuffed it away as if it shamed him […] (Ibid., 145)

When Bedwyr is injured in a fight, his life radically changes: The pain and shame of his bust leg left him bitter. He didn’t think he’d ride again, or fight, and what good was a man who couldn’t ride or fight? He snapped at the girls Gwenhwyfar sent to tend to him, until we hated going. He had a girl of his own […] but he sent her away, as if it made the shame worse to have her there weeping for him. (Ibid., 176)

Bedwyr is also no longer a favourite of Arthur’s, who “[w]ishes Bedwyr had been killed

outright”, and has the following opinion regarding his nephew’s injury: “Better a dead hero

than a living cripple” (Ibid., 179). The role of disability in the context of masculinity is also

alluded to in this passage. A disabled man is considered inferior to other males. Bedwyr’s

injury ultimately is also the reason why he falls in love with Arthur’s wife Gwenhwyfar. Her

love gives ‘meaning’ to his life – meaning that he had previously gained from being a warrior:

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“She can’t be worth it. Don’t you understand what will happen when Arthur finds out?” But he does understand. He likes the danger. He’s been trained for danger; lived for danger all his life, been taught to go and seek it out on battlefields and in the hunt. And this summer past it’s all been taken from him. The best future he can hope for is to be a half-man, riding patrol along the field-banks, watching over Arthur’s cows and barley. The pain in his bad leg always, souring him. Gwenhwyfar makes him feel like a man again. Arthur has no use for a broken warrior, but Arthur’s wife has. […] She takes him so seriously. And isn’t that what all boys want, and all men too? Just to be taken seriously? (Ibid., 189-90)

In HLA, boys grow up to be sent off to war. This is also the reason why Peredur’s

mother decides to raise him as a girl. Myrddin explains to Gwyn(a): “You can see the widow’s reasons, surely? Imagine being her. All her life sons have been dropping out of her belly and into battles. One after the next cut down, and then their father. […] If you were her, wouldn’t you do anything to stop this last lad from hurrying off to the same death as the others? Bring him up to know nothing of riding, weapons, hunting, any of the war-games young men play? Keep him safe at your side always?” (Ibid., 80)

Myrddin further states that “[t]he only way she’ll keep that boy out of the wars is if we put an

end to wars” (Ibid., 81). This statement, however, is at odds with what he says in a

conversation with Gwyna in the beginning of the book: “Oh sir!” I said, “They came with fire and swords and horses! They came killing and burning and hollering!” Myrddin wasn’t worried. “That is the way of the world, Gwyna. It has been so ever since the legions sailed away.” (Ibid., 14)

In this passage, it appears, Myrddin accepts wars as something ‘normal’, something that we

‘do’ and need not worry about. However, the bard certainly has a hope to be able to end all

wars, which is the reason why he glorifies Arthur in his stories – to make him strong enough

to bring peace to Britain: “[…] if I can make Arthur strong enough there might be peace again, like our grandfathers’ fathers knew back in the days when Rome held this island. Strength like Arthur’s could be used for good, see, just as the strength of old Rome was. That’s why I help him, Gwyna. […]” (Ibid., 15)

Sometimes, Gwyn(a) asks herself why not let Arthur hold his territory and all the other kings hold theirs and leave the Saxons quiet in the lands they’d settled? But I didn’t speak that thought, in case it sounded womanish. (Ibid., 126)

However, blinded by the relentless pursuit of his plan, Myrddin is unable to recognise that

Arthur does not want peace for the people, but only power for himself. Power and the pursuit

thereof are the keywords for the third rule of the ‘boy code’.

“They will all follow power” – The “Big-Wheel”-Imperative The third imperative of the ‘boy code’ concerns the achievement of “status, dominance,

and power” as being a requirement of a boy’s or man’s experience (Pollack 1999, 24).

Boys/men need to prove that they possess “the capacities to make things happen and to resist

being dominated by others” (Schrock and Schwalbe 2009, 279). As part of this ‘rule’, they

have to learn to act cool and tough, and to always remain under control, while striving to

reach high goals – failure, of course, not being an option (Ibid.). The issue of power and

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dominance and the struggle for it lie at the heart of Yolen’s Arthurian novel, and are perhaps

most obvious in the villainous character Morgause. As a female character she performs

masculinity – to the extent that people regard her as having “the heart of a man” (Yolen 2003,

225). Throughout the novel, it is made clear that Morgause is dominating and controlling, first

and foremost when dealing with her sons, but also, for instance, when messengers arrive at

her court: Morgause stood. Glaring at the men, trying to force their eyes on her by the rigidness of her posture, she cried, “Speak!” (Ibid., 19)

She is regarded in the novel as Arthur’s strongest enemy. One of the main themes in Yolen’s

novel is the question of ‘birthright’. Arthur is High King of Britain – “the most important

position in the entire civilized world” (Ibid., 45). However, he only has this position because

the powerful wizard Merlinnus has willed it. What Arthur – and everyone else except for

Merlinnus – does not know is that he does have a birthright to the throne, since he is the son

of Uther, who was High King before him. Morgause claims that her sons are the rightful heirs

to the throne, since her mother Ygerna (who is also Arthur’s mother) had been married to

Uther. Morgause is obsessed with bloodlines. She wants her son, Gawaine, to be High King –

and then wield power in his stead. Gawaine, however, is loyal to Arthur, convinced that Kingship should be about strength, not blood; about power, not birthright. Arthur was a strong and a mighty king. Who, then, could be better upon the high throne? (Ibid., 13)

Merlinnus, too, believes that “[w]ho rules Britain must have strength of arm more than the

blood of kings” (Ibid., 227). Arthur believes that this is why the mage had decided to make

him High King: Arthur smiled and shrugged. He knew he was a strong man. Except for Lancelot, possibly the strongest man in the kingdom. It was one of the reasons Merlinnus had chosen him to be king. (Ibid., 110)

Merlinnus gives a speech in front of the Companions: Merlinnus banged his fist on the Round Table and Gawen jumped at the sound. “What do the Highlander Scotti care if our king’s blood is Uther’s? Or Vortigern’s? Or Lot’s? Think of the dark little Picts – who is Uther to them? What Saxon will bend the knee to Lot’s kin? Yet they will all follow power.” The men at the table mumbled to one another, and the word power was heard often. (Ibid., 227)

Later, however, in a private conversation with Gawen, the mage makes a contradictory

statement: “[Kay] has not the strength to be king.” Gawen turned his face up to the old man. “You do not mean strength of arm, Magister.” It was a statement, not a question. I do like this boy, Merlinnus thought. (Ibid., 241)

Arthur, Merlinnus thinks, needs to prove himself to the people of Britain by means of a test.

This test is the sword in the stone – a test which, in theory, requires strength of arm.

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Strength is stereotypically considered as a particularly ‘masculine’ asset – and it is

represented as such in both Yolen’s and Reeve’s novels. In SOTRK, for example, Arthur

confronts Agravaine, who first claims that he will kill Arthur’s stepbrother Kay, and then

states that he will fight him. The king gives a seemingly ‘noble’ speech: [Agravaine’s] voice was still rough, and he came close to the bars of his cell. As he opened his mouth to say more, Arthur’s left hand shot out and caught him by the neck of his nightshirt. “You may fight anyone you choose,” Arthur said, “so long as they are of your own rank and size. […] But you will never… never… never harm a lesser soul,” Arthur said. “Not a boy or girl or old man. Not a woman or serf or beggar. If my kingdom is about anything, it is that. We who are strong are to be the caretakers of the weak. Do you take my meaning, sir?” (Ibid., 154-5)

Children, women and people of lower classes are considered as ‘lesser souls’, as ‘weak’.

Thus, Arthurs ‘noble’ speech shows how females are subordinated, but also how other males

are considered as ‘weaker’ and thus inferior – the serf and the beggar; the young boy and the

old man. ‘Real’ men, like Arthur and his knights, are strong and consequently ‘the caretakers’

of these weak groups of people – in accord with the ideas of courtliness and chivalry.

Merlinnus, too, partakes in the subordination of women, claiming that Morgause “is only a

woman, a witch, not a mage”, whose “magicks will not conquer” his own (Ibid., 263). The

fact alone that she is a woman makes her and her magic spells less powerful than his. That she

is seen as having “the heart of a man” (Ibid., 225) apparently does not suffice to make her

equally or even more powerful in the eyes of the wizard – her body is female and thus

inherently powerless. This supports the out-dated notion of masculinity and femininity being

“tied to particular bodies” (Harper 2007, 511). However, at the same time, Merlinnus is not

sure that his magic skills are better than Morgause’s, asking his spiritual oak: “Then will it be a woman who brings down Cadbury in its prime? A woman who wrecks the Round Table and scatters the Companions? Oh, amice fondifer, what weapons do I have against a woman’s wiles? Tell me it is not so.” (Ibid., 265-6)

As Hogan (2009) writes, in the Arthurian tradition females are commonly “constructed as

deviant Others who threaten the well-being of the national community” (Hogan 2009, 59).

Indeed, prior to the feminist movement, female characters have largely been portrayed “in

overwhelmingly negative terms” (Ibid.): Guinevere, the selfish adulteress, betrays her husband and her nation, leading to the downfall of both, while Morgan Le Fay, a cruel and seductive witch, plots to destroy her half-brother Arthur […] (Ibid.)

The portrayal of the indeed very few female characters in Yolen’s and Reeve’s novels would

ask for another study, however. That females are regarded as weak can also be seen in the

language used. For example, in HLA, Myrddin claims that “Maelwas is as weak as a woman”

(Reeve 2007, 106).

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According to the third imperative of the ‘boy code’, shame and failure should also be

avoided. An example of this ‘rule’ is again provided in Yolen’s novel. King Arthur has asked

the men – and only the men – of Britain to try and draw the sword from the stone. The one

who is able to pull it is the rightful king of Britain – though, of course, due to Merlinnus’

magic, Arthur will be the only man able to accomplish this feat. Gawen is surprised that none

of the men are trying their luck in daylight, and wonders why it is that they approach the stone

during the night, when nobody is watching: “I do not understand […] Why not pull the sword during the day when they can see what they are doing? When everyone can see and declare them king?” […] “And let the world watch them fail?” [Merlinnus] shook the glass. “But, Magister, failure is only a way stop on the road to success,” Gawen said.” “Who taught you that?” […] “My… mother,” Gawen said in a small voice. “Of course,” Merlinnus told him, “your mother.” “What do you mean?” Now it was Gawen’s voice that held the challenge. “Only women think that way,” Merlinnus said. “And mages. Men think that failure unmans them. They do it at night. And alone.” (Yolen 2003, 253)

The restrictions of traditional masculinity become clear. While it is ‘normal’ for women (and

apparently for mages) to think that “failure is only a way stop on the road to success” (Ibid.),

men feel that they have to fail ‘in private’ in order to remain recognised as ‘manly’. This is

what the ‘boy code’ teaches them. To avoid shame and failure at all costs. Boys/men are also

required to “wear the mask of coolness” at all times, “to act as though everything is all right,

as though everything is under control, even if it isn’t” (Pollack 1999, 24). This ‘rule’, it may

be said, might derive from the medieval ideals of chivalry and courtliness, which, as

Bouchard (2006) explains, “contained with it many of the assumptions – ultimately derived

from classical stoicism – of correct manly behavior as constituting self-control and a

composed demeanor” (Bouchard 2006, 128). In SOTRK, for example, when Arthur and

Merlinnus learn that the North Witch has sent an assassin to their court, Merlinnus says that

he is “not unduly worried” that any of her sons might be the assassin, but in reality he is

(Yolen 2003, 58). Similarly, when he sees Arthur covered in blood after he and Gawaine had

been attacked by the strangers, it is only his shaking hands that are giving away his true

feelings: He had just arrived, having heard the commotion. Young Gawen was at his side, close as a shadow, and trembling. The mage’s voice seemed strong as ever, but his hands gave him away, for they were shaking. Clearly the sight of Arthur covered in blood had unnerved them both. (Ibid., 171)

In Reeve’s narrative the greed for status and power is foregrounded as an essentially

negative trait, one that is primarily embodied by Arthur. When a messenger from the town

Aquae Sulis asks Arthur and his war-band to help them fight off the Saxons, Arthur does not

hesitate: It was the chance that Arthur had been waiting for. He needed a town under his protection if he was ever to be taken seriously as a power among the little kings of Britain. (Reeve 2007, 83-4)

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Once arrived in town, he can already see himself ‘owning’ the place: Arthur wouldn’t be Arthur if he didn’t start imagining his own statue perching in the empty alcove where that old emperor used to stand watch. He wants this place. […] He wants it the way a man wants food and shelter after a month on the road. He wants a town. Maybe he’ll change its name, like Alexander, once it’s his. Arthuropolis. (Ibid., 87)

As has already been explained, Myrddin believes that Arthur is “the hope of Britain” (Ibid.,

264). The bard “wasn’t stupid”, though, “he could see that Arthur only wanted what the others

wanted: power and land. But maybe, if Arthur would be made strong enough, that wouldn’t

matter.” (Ibid., 267) Throughout the novel Gwyn(a) has to listen to Myrddin’s talk of how

Arthur will save them. In the end, she has enough: “Arthur? You’ve wasted your life building him high and wrapping him up in stories, but Arthur hasn’t cleaned the Saxons away. […] Arthur doesn’t care about anything but making his own self fat and rich, and he hasn’t even managed to do that very well. And all you can do is make up stories, make up lies, try and turn him into something that he isn’t. […]” (Ibid., 265)

Gwenhwyfar would like to see Cei, Arthur’s brother, ruling Aquae Sulis, but Bedwyr replies: “Cei does not want to be lord of anywhere.” “That is what would make him a good lord. These men who want power, they’re the ones who shouldn’t be allowed to get it. They say they’ll use it for good, but they only use it to make themselves more powerful still. Let Arthur die, and Cei rule us.” (Ibid.:192)

In the end, Gwyna states, “[t]he real Arthur had been just a little tyrant in an age of tyrants”

(Ibid., 286). After having watched him die at the battlefield, she helps herself to “his rings and

his belt and his boots and the old gold cross he wore round his neck. I thought I’d earned

them.” (Ibid., 283)

“Do not let there be any embroidery on it” – The “No Sissy Stuff”-Rule The fourth ‘rule’ of the ‘boy code’, which Pollack regards as “the most traumatizing and

dangerous injunction thrust on boys and men”, is the one forbidding them to express feelings

and urges seen as ‘feminine’ (Pollack 1999, 24). Such feelings/urges include dependence,

warmth and empathy (Ibid.). As Nodelman (2002) explains, being masculine increasingly

means not being feminine and also not being gay; thus, behaviour considered feminine or

effeminate is increasingly avoided in order to appear ‘manly’ (8). If such feelings are shown,

boys/men are commonly greeted “with ridicule, with taunts and threats that shame them for

their failure to act and feel in stereotypically ‘masculine’ ways” (Pollack 1999, 24). Kahn

(2009) explains how such taunting already occurs early in a child’s life: Hegemonic masculinity can also take place on the playground, where boys tease and harass girls and boys who “act like girls.” People engage in all kinds of behaviors […] to make sure other men act like “real men” […] (32)

The term ‘sissy’, which defines this ‘rule’ of the ‘boy code’, originated in mid-nineteenth

century American boy culture (Grant 2004, 829). It was coined and used in order to “identify

those boys who failed to meet the requisites of masculinity as set by the peer society” (Ibid.,

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845). It was, as Grant (2004) describes, “in the context of the school, which immersed

children in the society of their peers, that boys were most likely to be identified as sissies and

to suffer from the victimization of other boys” (Ibid., 844). This fourth ‘rule’ of the ‘boy

code’ severely impacts boys’ emotional wellbeing, as Pollack (1999) describes: Until now, many boys have been able to live out and express only half of their emotional lives – they feel free to show their “heroic,” though, action-oriented side, their physical prowess, as well as their anger and rage. What the Boy Code dictates is that they should suppress all other emotions and cover up the more gentle, caring, vulnerable sides of themselves. (13)

In SOTRK, it is Gawaine who hides his vulnerable side already at the beginning of the

novel. Again the context in which he tries to be ‘strong’ and ‘tough’ is during a conversation

with his mother: Gawaine put his hand on hers, but she shook him off, as if his hand were a wet, dirty thing. She had never been one for mawkish displays of affection, but she had never before shrugged him off so thoroughly. Not even when he was a muddy boy, in from a ride in the rain. So he smiled at her to hide his hurt. (Yolen 2003, 11)

Similarly, his twin brothers are shrugged off by their mother when she visits Arthur’s court

later on in the novel. They comfort each other in a corner instead of openly addressing that

they feel hurt: The twins ran to her side to hug her, and she brushed them off as if they were overeager puppies with muddy paws. Gareth laughed and still grabbed for her fingers, but Gaheris stood to one side, looking a bit wounded. […] The twins had withdrawn to a corner of the room and were speaking together, clearly comforting each other, salving wounds only they could see. (Ibid., 261-2)

Morgause again also might be described as performing masculinity, avoiding any

demonstration of warmth towards her sons. Arthur does show warmth towards his advisor

Merlinnus in one scene in the novel, hugging him and thanking him for all his help. “The

display”, however, “disquieted Merlinnus since he did not know what to make of it” (Ibid.,

216). Merlinnus is also afraid that the king might appear ‘less manly’ should he follow

Gawen’s advice of using a cushion for his ‘hard throne’: The mage’s mouth twisted about the word cushion. But he could think of no objection. It was the quiet hominess of the solution that he found somehow offensive. Certainly it would work. But would it make the king less… manly? Less powerful? Less… “It will work,” he said at last. “Only do not let there be any embroidery on it.” (Ibid., 104)

In Reeve’s novel the issue of suppressing (or not suppressing) ‘feminine’ feelings and

urges is also addressed – for example, in the character of Bedwyr. When Gwyn(a) first joins

Arthur’s war-band and they become friends, they are both still children. Bedwyr is frequently

described as showing feelings of warmth towards Gwyn(a). For example, when Gwyn(a) tells

him an invented story of how her parents had died “his eyes filled with tears” and he hugs her

– however, “in a brotherly, bearish way he’d copied from the fighting men” (Reeve 2007, 40).

After his first battle – and his first kill – he also hugs her. Later, when he has grown up and

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become a ‘man’, he rather joins the other boys in drinking and in their talking about girls – as

is further explained in the subsequent subchapter. Bedwyr’s brother, Medrawt, is described by

Gwyna as “a prideful man, and cold, and hard to like, but he wasn’t all cruel, not by miles”

(Ibid., 176). After he has killed a man in a fight, he hugs his brother: I’d never seen him show kindness to his younger brother before. He was so conscious of being a man that he barely let himself look at us mere boys […] (Ibid., 47)

Later, Gwyna narrates how Medrawt takes care of Bedwyr after he has been injured: He sat by his brother’s bed, talking about old times with him and telling him he’d be up and running by fall-of-leaf, while I stood waiting, […] and saw a different Medrawt, a loving brother, a man who talked fondly about his wife and children. I wondered if they were all like that, when you stripped the armour and the pride off them. (Ibid., 176)

When Peredur – after having learned that he is in fact not a girl, but a boy – arrives in Aquae

Sulis, wishing to become one of Arthur’s warriors, Gwyna is sad: Filled my eyes with him, and felt sorry, knowing that he’d be swallowed into the warrior-life, and learn to hide his sweetness under bluster and ironmongery. (Ibid., 169)

HLA thus also criticises this imperative of the ‘boy code’, pointing out that such behaviour is

not innate, but learned. Boys learn to hide such feelings, to hide their ‘sweetness’ under their

armour.

Taylor (1999) argues that the “late medieval code of chivalry is an extreme example of

a code of aggressive masculinity”, which reflects “a society’s military needs” and “enforces a

rigorous censoring of human expression” (184). Fear, in particular, is “the one thing chivalric

literature virtually never mentions directly” (Ibid., 174). As has already been discussed in the

first section of the analysis, Kay in SOTRK hides his fear of enclosed spaces and is

congratulated for it by King Arthur. Indeed, the only fear that is ‘acceptable’ for men to show

in both novels is fear of ‘magic’ – embodied by Merlinnus and Morgause in SOTRK and by

the bard Myrddin (who is not even a real wizard) in HLA. In SOTRK, “[f]ear rode the mage’s

shoulder and turned its baleful eye on all” (Yolen 2003, 49). On the one hand, Merlinnus does

not like how people are afraid of him, but on the other hand, he knows that “their fear was a

necessary component to his art” (Ibid., 54). In HLA, Myrddin is “someone they joked about

when his back was turned, but someone they feared too. After all, had he not called up the

spirits of the waters that very afternoon?” (Reeve 2007, 37) The men in HLA are even afraid

of entering Myrddin’s premises: Strange, I thought; these men would charge shield-walls, but not one would venture in through Myrddin’s flimsy fence of charms. (Ibid., 276)

In SOTKR, men are also afraid of Morgause, “whom most hated and feared in equal measure”

(Yolen 2003, 274).

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The only emotion boys and men are allowed to – or even encouraged to – express

according to the ‘boy code’ is anger (Pollack 1999, 44). As has already been shown in the

discussion of the second rule regarding violence and aggression, anger is shown by several of

the characters in both novels. Even the benevolent (and sometimes naïve) King Arthur in

Yolen’s narrative frequently expresses his anger. Primarily because he is annoyed at being

confined to the court instead of being able to go on adventures: “[…] What kind of job is this for a king?” Arthur’s right hand closed into a fist. “I want to be out hunting deer. I want to take my sword and right wrongs. But instead I sit all day on this thing.” He banged his fist on the wooden arm. “This hard chair. And I listen.” […] Arthur gripped the carved arms of the throne to keep from getting angry. Merlinnus knew that whenever Arthur was tired, and cranky with too much listening, he got angry. Arthur gripped the throne so hard, his palms took the imprint of the carvings […] (Yolen 2003, 60-1)

Also, when the men of Britain do not follow his bidding to come and try draw the sword from

the stone, he gets mad: Arthur’s right hand balled into a fist and he struck the table hard. Two of the scrolls rolled off. “Everyone in the kingdom has been invited to try his hand. It is the waiting on them to actually come and do it that is driving me mad.” (Ibid., 237)

An activity that always makes Arthur rather angry is doing his reading and writing – he makes

it clear throughout the novel that he prefers the sword to the pen: The next day, Arthur was once more sitting at his desk, struggling with a piece of parchment and words that did not fit as easily on the page as in his mouth. He slammed his pen down. […] Suddenly he remembered that it had taken many long months of wooden swordplay before he had been ready for the steel. “But damn it, I wanted the real sword and I do not want the pen,” he told the fire. (Ibid., 180-1)

As Schrock and Schwalbe (2009) write, young men might “distance themselves from

intellectual work, which is defined as feminine, and embrace physical work, which is defined

as masculine” (288). Although no reason for Arthur’s dislike of ‘intellectual work’ is being

given – except that he has always liked sport and action better – he can nevertheless be

regarded as conforming to stereotypically ‘masculine’ behaviour that foregrounds action.

“The pretty maids” – Expressing Sexual Desire for Females While the four previous sections have focused on the imperatives of the ‘boy code’, this

section is not part of the code, yet needs to be considered in this analysis of masculinities as

well. As Schrock and Schwalbe (2009) write, “[b]oys also learn that they should feel, or at

least express, sexual desire for girls” (282). Preadolescent and adolescent boys, they explain,

signify this desire “mainly through talk about the sexual appeal of girls and women” (Ibid.).

The sexualisation of women serves “to signify heterosexuality”, “to challenge women’s

authority”, as well as to protect men “from homophobic abuse by their peers” (Ibid., 285). It

was in the nineteenth century, when “‘the homosexual’ as a social type became clearly

defined” and also criminalised (Connell 2005, 196). He was thus “expelled from the

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masculine and located in a deviant group, symbolically assimilated to women” (Ibid.). As a

result, heterosexuality became a requirement of masculinity and ‘manliness’.

The expression of sexual desire for girls is also addressed in Reeve’s novel. Gwyn(a)

observes how Bedwyr – being “almost a man, with a scruffy stubble of beard that he was

vastly proud of” – and the other boys “were forever seeking out those girls, swapping stories

about them and wrangling over which one was the prettiest or friendliest” (Reeve 2007, 114).

She describes: I remembered the way that he and the other boys talked about girls. They hadn’t the courage yet to talk to girls, but they talked about them endlessly. They watched them at the marketplace. Their heads turned like the heads of watchful birds when Gwenhwyfar’s handmaidens passed them in the street. They laughed, and scoffed, and compared one with another, and I couldn’t join that talk. It uneased me to hear the way they spoke. How hard they thought of girls’ bodies, and how little of their feelings. Like women were just creatures to be used and traded. They respected horses better. (Ibid., 130)

In this passage, Gwyn(a) points out how the boys compare the girls with each other, focusing

on their bodies. Nodelman (2002) explains how “[t]raditionally, women’s power lay in their

physical beauty”, and how “[m]en were the observers and made the judgments about who was

worth looking at” (7). This practice can clearly be seen in this passage. Baker-Sperry and

Grauerholz (2003) emphasise how physical attractiveness in the form of the socially

constructed feminine beauty ideal is (still) regarded as “one of women’s most important

assets” (711). This ideal, though by some women today used as a tool of empowerment,

largely can be viewed as “an oppressive, patriarchal practice that objectifies, devalues, and

subordinates women” (Ibid., 711-2). The practice of objectification and subordination can be

recognised in the passage quoted above, in which Gwyn(a) feels that the boys regard women

as “creatures to be used and traded”, respecting “horses better” (Reeve 2007, 130). Earlier in

the novel, Arthur, when observing Gwenhwyfar, is described as having “the same look that he

gets when he is thinking about buying a horse, or taking a new stretch of land” (Ibid., 110).

A similar scene as the one discussed above, in which men judge and objectify women,

occurs in Yolen’s novel. Kay tells his stepbrother, King Arthur, that ‘the men’ are not

satisfied with this year’s May Queen. He hands Arthur a list of qualities that ‘the men’ would

wish a May Queen to possess: “Thre thingges smalle – headde, nose, breests, Thre thingges largge – waiste, hippes, calves, Thre thingges longge – haires, finggers, thies, Thre thingges short – height, toes, utterance.” (Yolen 2003, 68)

However, Arthur is rather confused by the list, and replies: “Sounds more like an animal in a bestiary than a girl,” Arthur ventured at last. “And I am not sure of your spelling.” (Ibid., 69)

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Merlinnus’ reaction when reading the list is similar: “Head… waist… hips, calves.” He shook his head in disgust. “It sounds more like a shepherd’s list. Or a butcher’s.” (Ibid., 99)

The objectification of women and the judgment of their physical attractiveness are thus

condemned in Yolen’s novel. Also, Arthur wants “something more than… than a list of things

small and large” (Ibid., 70): But he stopped because, for the life of him, he did not know what he wanted in a bride. […] Not a May Queen to serve for the Planting Fest until Solstice Eve, but a queen for all seasons. Someone to talk to, to confide in. To share interests. Someone who could make him laugh. He rarely had anything to laugh at, now that he was king. The list the men had drawn up did not speak to that kind of queen. He wondered if there was any list that could. (Ibid.)

Ironically, the only women fitting the descriptions of the May Queen set up by ‘the men’ in

SOTRK are those that are most dangerous, namely Morgause, the North Witch, and the five

women she has ‘created’ through her magic. Together with them she flies to King Arthur’s

court to have a look at the Sword in the Stone and to take it into her own hands that Arthur

would not be able to draw it: There gannet and doves fell like hawks in stoop, down to the bordering field, where they alighted full feathered, then arose as six naked women, high bosomed, small headed, with rounded hips, long hair, slim fingers, and short of utterance. May Queens all. (Ibid., 251)

When they are having a feast at the court that night, the men seem “stupefied by the beauty

of” these ‘May Queens’ (Ibid., 256). So do the boys with whom Gawen shares a table: “May Queens,” muttered Geoffrey, speaking as though enchanted. “Do you not think so?” “What?” Gawen had no idea what he was talking about. “The queen’s women. Beautiful May Queens.” (Ibid., 272)

Gawen is the only one who is not impressed by the women – probably since she is only

disguised as a boy. She asks the other boys: “Are they intelligent? Do they have skills? Can they converse on matters other than embroidery?” Gawen asked in return. “Does it matter?” Geoffrey obviously did not think so. (Ibid.)

When Gawen reveals herself to be not a boy, but Gwenhwyfar, Merlinnus jokes about how

she would fulfil all ‘requirements’ of a May Queen except for one: “Come, child, you shall make a lovely May Queen by next year. By then your hair should be long enough for Kay’s list, though what we shall ever do about short utterances is beyond me.” (Ibid., 338-9)

Arthur suddenly realises he has to marry Gwen, since she has drawn the sword, whereupon

she says, “It is customary, my lord, to ask what the woman wills” (Ibid.). Subsequently, she

also tells Arthur and Merlinnus why her father thinks her ‘unmarriageable’, once again

referring to the qualities of ‘the ideal May Queen’: “‘Unmarriageable’? You?” Arthur looked deeply puzzled, even offended. “Short utterances,” Gwen explained, keeping her tone light, “are not on my list of accomplishments, as Merlinnus has so rightly witnessed.” All three of them laughed. (Ibid., 341)

Though men’s emphasis on physical attractiveness of females is explicitly criticised in the

‘May Queen’ episodes in Yolen’s novel, the ending of the book foregrounds the feminine

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beauty ideal. It might be said that explicit and implicit ideology (as explained in Chapter

Two) are indeed contradictory in this case. Right in time for Arthur and Gwen’s wedding, her

“fair hair had grown out to near shoulder length” (Ibid., 344). The guards “all nodded at

Gwen, and more than a few felt themselves moved by her undisguised beauty […] she was as

fetching a woman as had been seen in the castle for months” (Ibid.). The beauty of Gwen’s

sister, which had been destroyed because of the pain she had felt when Gawaine had left her,

is also restored when the two are reunited: Gawaine and Mariel had been married six months before in a ceremony held in Carohaise, her beauty restored by Merlinnus and love. (Ibid.)

Physical attractiveness is described as the most valuable asset for females in HLA as

well. Cei’s daughter, for instance, is envied by the other girls – including Gwyna – for her

beauty: “She looks the way the rest of us look in our dreams” (Reeve 2007, 158).

Gwenhwyfar is described by Maelwas as a “pretty thing”, so is Peri (Peredur) in his disguise

as a girl: “She was pretty enough, but only a child, no older than me. [Arthur’s] gaze slid off

her like water off metal and went roving among her older, prettier companions.” (Ibid., 65)

Gwyna regards herself as ugly. When Myrddin tells her she is going to be a girl again and live

in Gwenhwyfar’s household, this is her reaction: I thought of the graceful, perfect girls she kept about her there, slender as withies. “She’ll not take me.” (Ibid., 128)

In HLA, the feminine beauty ideal, however, is not foregrounded in the closure of the novel.

As Stephens (1992) explains, endings “reaffirm what society regards as important issues and

preferred outcomes” (43). Yolen’s novel, as can be seen above, has the traditional ‘fairy tale-

ending’. Gwen and Arthur are married in a beautiful ceremony: By the time of her own wedding, as Merlinnus had predicted, Gwen’s fair hair had grown out to near shoulder length, at least long enough to be pulled up with ribands and combs and fastened with a golden circlet. At her insistence, she was carried from Carohaise to Cadbury in style, riding in a covered wagon bedecked with garlands of vervain and rose. Behind came the wagons bearing her dowry, her books, her clothing, and her mother’s jewelry […] The wedding party came into the Great Hall, where rose petals had been strewn over the rushes and birch limbs, and fennel and orpine bedecked the torches. Fresh harbs had been thrown into the hearth fires […] Like all weddings, it was meant for happy ever after. (Yolen 2003, 344-8)

In the words of Flanagan (2010) – who refers to another story – Yolen’s novel can be said to

close “in a predictable manner with the marriage of the hero to his princess, thereby affirming

romantic, heterosexual union as a desirable narrative outcome” (28). In Reeve’s novel,

Gwyn(a) tells Peredur her secret – that she has been both Gwyn and Gwyna – and they kiss.

But their ending is somewhat different: Time to go, before winter tightened its grip so hard we could not go at all. We kept off the roads. Stuck to the woods and the quiet places. Just a young harper and his travelling-companion heading west, taking turns to ride our single pony. […] I told my tales of Arthur. For was I not Gwyn, son of Myrddin? And didn’t I alone know the truth of it? And couldn’t my beautiful young friend coax

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such songs from that cracked old harp that my words took flight upon its music […] I got enough in exchange for those relics [of Arthur] that by the time we found our way to Din Tagyll in the springtime, my Peri and I, we had enough to buy passage with a trader, outbound for somewhere better. (Reeve 2007, 286-8)

The five sections in this subchapter focused on how male characters in both Yolen’s and

Reeve’s novels adhere to – or sometimes disobey – the ‘rules’ of the ‘boy code’. As can be

seen from the analysis, Yolen’s novel presents most of these ‘rules’ – though certainly not all

of them as has been noted particularly in the last section – as the norm, while Reeve’s

narrative points them out and observes how they are learned rather than innate. The two

novels not only differ in this respect, but also in how they present their female characters ‘in

disguise’. The following subchapter focuses on these ‘cross-dressers’ – G(a)wen from SOTRK

and Gwyn/a from HLA – and their performances of masculinity. The character of Peri/Peredur

from HLA is also considered, since he has to learn how to behave ‘manly’ as well, when he

finds out that he is not a girl, but a boy.

5.3 “I’ve almost forgotten that I ever was a girl”: Masculinity and Cross-Dressing

A Liberatory Experience – The Potential of Female-to-Male Cross-Dressing Halberstam (1998) claims that masculinity “becomes legible as masculinity where and

when it leaves the white male middle-class body” (2). This is what happens in female-to-male

cross-dressing, when masculinity is performed by female characters. Both female-to-male and

male-to-female cross-dressing is “surprisingly common” in children’s texts and can make the

reader aware of “the socially constructed nature of gender” (Flanagan 2002, 33, 79). The

potential of cross-dressing in literature is vast, as Flanagan (2002) explains, since the cross-

dresser is able to deconstruct gender through his/her perception of what is required in a performance of the gender which is other to their biological origin, and in the response which their behavior engenders in others […] (Ibid., 80)

However, generally, there is a significant difference in the use and effect of female-to-male

and male-to-female cross-dressing. While males dressing up as females frequently do so “in a

gesture of male rowdiness” to a comic effect, the experience is usually different for females

(Ibid., 79): For females, the cross-dressing experience is liberatory. It exposes the artifice of gender constructions, permitting the female cross-dresser to construct herself a unique gendered niche which is not grounded within a single gender category, but incorporates elements of both. (Ibid., 79)

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Cross-dressing, as Flanagan (2002) describes, allows females “to inhabit the male world and

experience many of the liberties denied them in their female form” (Ibid., 78-9). This is the

case in both Yolen’s and Reeve’s novels.

In SOTRK, Gawen arrives at King Arthur’s court with the wish to become a knight –

she wants to fight Gawaine, whom she believes to have broken her sister’s heart (the reader

learns this only toward the end of the narrative, when the fact that Gawen is actually a girl is

disclosed). Without her disguise as a boy, Gwen would not have been able to come to King

Arthur’s court – or, if she had, her experience there would have been radically different.

However, despite her disguise, Gawen is not seen ‘fit’ for knighthood by Merlinnus: The boy was slight, more suited for a monastery than the rough-and-tumble castle life. But it was difficult to tell boys this age how badly fitted they were for heroics. They never listened. As if anticipating the old man’s concerns, the boy added, “I already know how to ride and I am stronger than I look. I wish to learn the sword and lance. I know the bow. And I have never feared hard work.” (Yolen 2003, 83)

Thus, there is a clear limitation to Gawen’s disguise. Her physique is not ‘manly’ enough for

her to be trained as a knight. Arthur agrees with Merlinnus’ opinion: “Is he to be yours? He is too small for knighthood. And too… slight to even apprentice to a smith or an ostler.” Then he looked back at Gawen thoughtfully. Merlinnus knew what Arthur meant. That whatsoever it was the boy had come for, he was certainly not built to be a fighter. (Ibid., 99)

Instead of becoming a knight, then, Gawen is taken in by Merlinnus as his apprentice. The

mage tries to comfort the ‘boy’: “For whatever work you wish to do here, know this: The mind is sharper than any blade. […] Be content with me, child. You shall use your strength in my service and it will serve us both well.” (Ibid., 100)

Though the experience is partly liberatory for Gawen, there are clearly restrictions. When, at

the end of the novel, Gwen tells Arthur and Myrddin her reasons for coming to Cadbury, she

presents it as if it had been her own decision not to become a knight: “[…] I came here in disguise to learn to be a knight and thus challenge Sir Gawaine, who had dishonored my sister. But when I realized I could not best him by sword – having neither hand nor heart for it after all – I thought that by magic I might accomplish what brute strength could not.” (Ibid., 340)

In Reeve’s novel Gwyna’s act of cross-dressing – as has already been noted – does not

occur out of her own decision. It is Myrddin who resolves that she should travel with them

disguised as a boy so that she would not be recognised as the ‘lake lady’: “What do you say, child? How would you like the great Myrddin to transform you into a boy? […] Look. There’s nothing girlish about that face. And no shortage of dead men’s cast-offs to clothe her in. With her hair shorn and leggings and a tunic on she’d look like just another of the boys who hang round Arthur. She needn’t even change her name, much. Gwyn will do.” (Reeve 2007, 34)

This is Gwyna’s reaction: “What do you say, child?” asked Cei. Well, what would you say? Better a boy than a frog, or a stone-cold corpse. That’s what I reckoned. (Ibid.)

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Gwyna feels that she has no other choice but to follow Myrddin’s bidding; she is clearly in a

powerless position. This can already be noticed earlier on, when the bard persuades the girl to

help him play the part of the lake-lady: “[…] we can make men think [the sword] is from the gods.” If I’d been a man, or even a boy, I might have said, “What do you mean, ‘we’? I want no part in enchantments.” But I was only Gwyna the Mouse. It was my lot to do as my elders told me, even if I didn’t understand. (Ibid., 21)

Gwyna is powerless because she is a girl. She does not decide to cross-dress as a male

because she “finds herself severely constrained by patriarchy” (Flanagan 2002, 82) – in fact, it

is the constraints of patriarchy which force her to disguise herself as a boy. Nevertheless,

when Gwyna becomes Gwyn, Myrddin’s servant, it does indeed open up possibilities for her –

through cross-dressing she gains “potent access to all that had been formerly denied to her

while positioned as feminine” (Ibid.). This is why she is tremendously disappointed when, a

few years later, Myrddin tells her that she must become a girl again.

The second character in Reeve’s novel that cross-dresses is Peredur – who is the son of

one of Arthur’s former companions, who has died in battle. He grows up as a girl, Peri, not

knowing that, in fact, he is a boy – for reasons already discussed in the previous subchapter.

This situation, however, can be regarded as similar to female-to-male cross-dressing. When

Peri finds out that he is a boy, he suddenly enjoys liberties that he would not have been able to

enjoy as a girl: for one, he leaves his home to look for Arthur and join his war-band as a

fighter. Before, when he had still believed himself to be a girl – despite a growing beard – he

had had to practice his fighting skills in private: Using her maidenly skills – her weaving and her needlecraft – she made herself a pair of breeks, and a man’s tunic. […] Dressed in her makeshift man’s clothes, Peri ran through the woods, chasing birds, hunting pigs with her wooden spears, fighting desperate duels against the purple-plumed thistles […] She used the kitchen knife to cut her beautiful brown hair short, thinking that under her head-scarf no one would ever notice. (Reeve 2007, 152)

As a boy, Peredur no longer has to hide his desires. Being male for him is a liberatory

experience – at first, at least. His joy at finding out that he is a boy soon fades, however, as

can be seen later on in the analysis.

“People see what they expect to see” – Successful Performances As Flanagan (2002) writes, the “true biological status” of the female-to-male cross-

dressing protagonist is usually “not discovered for at least a portion of the text and perhaps

most significantly, she is considered to be a genuine male by the other characters with whom

she/he interacts” (83-4). This is the case with the female cross-dressers in both Yolen’s and

Reeve’s novels. In SOTRK, Gawen is only recognised to be a girl by Morgause, who does not

reveal this information to anyone, not even the reader – all she says is this: “I know what you

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are, and not what you seem” (Yolen 2003, 304). Not even Merlinnus, the powerful mage,

finds out Gawen’s secret until she tells him herself. Merlinnus has a theory why only

Morgause could not be deceived: Merlinnus laughed out loud. “Magic even beyond my making, Arthur. But the North Queen guessed. Like calling to like. One strong woman to another.” (Ibid., 340)

The boys with whom Gawen has spent so much time at Cadbury have not recognised her

disguise either, though they do not want to admit it after having found out the truth about their

friend: However, the boys Ciril and Geoffrey and Mark kept glancing at the bride under lowered lids, unable to believe it was actually Gawen come to court again. “I knew she was a girl the whole time,” Ciril whispered. “Me, too,” said Mark. “Did not,” Geoffrey retorted […] (Ibid., 345)

In HLA, Gwyn(a) is recognised as a girl only by King Maelwas, and by Arthur’s wife

Gwenhwyfar – the latter, however, has once seen the ‘boy’, Gwyn, naked in the baths. Only

years later, when Gwyna is already living with her as a girl, Gwenhwyfar discloses that she

was aware of her disguise all this time: “[…] you used to be Myrddin’s boy.” I’d not expected that. Years it was, since that time I stumbled on her in the old pool. […] She’d stored it up, that little nugget of knowledge, till she needed it to buy my silence with. (Reeve 2007, 184-5)

The boys, however, never guess Gwyn(a)’s secret, the reason being, in Myrddin’s words, that

“[p]eople see what they expect to see, and believe what you tell them to believe” (Ibid., 42-3).

This is also the reason why, later on in the novel, when Gwyna decides herself to become

Gwyn again, the people “nodded and welcomed me again, and said how I’d grown, and never

thought to notice I’d grown into a girl” (Ibid., 226). Gwyna could have told someone her

secret. However, she deliberately decided against it: I’d never told anyone my old secret, see. Even Celemon, who was my friend, would have been sure to think it strange or wicked that I’d been a boy, and she’d have told the other girls, and it would have spread all round Aquae Sulis, how Myrddin had disguised me. (Ibid., 173)

Gwyna does not want anyone to think that she is ‘strange’ or ‘wicked’. ‘Wicked’ is exactly

the word that Saint Porroc uses to describe Peri’s disguise: “Behold!” he bellowed. “See what wickedness lurks in this house! What unnatural things this roof has sheltered! Look at this youth, this boy so wrapped up in iniquity that he dresses himself in women’s raiment! Can we plumb the depths of such wickedness?” Boy? What boy? thinks Peri, looking round, surprised. “Be gone!” shouts the saint. “Leave this place! Run, if you can run, weighed down with such masses of sin!” (Ibid., 155-6)

The saints’ reaction at seeing a boy dressed in girls’ clothes is harsh. The question here would

be whether he would have used the same speech had he been confronted with a girl dressed in

boy’s clothes. In any case, Maelwas and Gwenhwyfar have both reacted calmly to Gwyn(a)

being disguised as a boy: Then, walking with Myrddin towards the place where I was waiting with the horses, [Maelwas] nodded at me, and said, “Why do you dress her as a boy?” […] Maelwas smiled. “It is a good disguise,” he said. “But I don’t think it will work much longer.” (Ibid., 123-4)

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While Gawen discloses her secret disguise out of her own decision after having

confessed to retrieving the real sword from the stone, Reeve’s characters, Gwyn(a) and

Peri/Peredur, have to stop cross-dressing because their own bodies prevent them from doing

so. When Gwyn(a)’s real sex is found out by Maelwas, she feels that it has been her own

fault: I felt ashamed of myself for letting old Maelwas see the truth. Had it been my fault? Had I not been boyish enough? I’d let my hair get longer, following the same fashion as Bedwyr and the other boys. It hung below my ears, and maybe it showed up something girlish in my face. (Ibid., 124)

Myrddin brings Gwyna to the Irishman’s place, where she should learn ‘the ways of women’.

The people there do not realise at first that she is a girl – only by paying close attention to her

body: I know she looks boyish, but she is a girl. Look closely. You see?” They looked closely. They saw. My smooth face and slender fingers and the beginnings of my small breasts under my tunic. (Ibid., 132)

When, only a short time later, Gwyna menstruates for the first time, she even feels her own

body has betrayed her: It seemed to me my own body had betrayed me, and sided with Myrddin. There’d be no way back into boyhood for me now. (Ibid., 135)

Similarly, Peri’s disguise becomes less convincing, the older he gets and the more his

body changes. Even prior to that, however, Gwyn(a) – when still unaware of his disguise –

had already noticed that “[t]here was nothing else girlish about” Peri except for her long hair:

“Her chest, under that white shift, was flat as a slate. Her jaw had a boyish squareness to it,

too” (Ibid.). The older he gets, the more obvious these traits become: Peri was changing, too. She’d grown even taller, and however often she altered her dresses they always looked wrong, stretched over her broad chest and strong arms. Her voice deepened. Flecks of beard began to show on her chin and upper lip and throat. (Ibid., 152)

The growing beard is no reason for Peri’s mother to tell her son the truth, instead she “showed

her how to shave, using the sharpened edge of a seashell” (Ibid.). When Peri asks why “none

of the other women had beards. Did they shave in secret?” (Ibid.), his mother replies: “Hairiness is a blessing God sends only to a few maidens,” said her mother wistfully. “It means that men will find you ugly, and you will never marry. You will stay here at my side always and always.” (Ibid.)

When Peri’s mother dies, however, he learns the truth from Saint Porroc, who sees not a girl

but a young man standing in front of him: “Daughter?” The saint stepped nearer. “Daughter?” The hard work of grave-digging had streaked Peri’s face with dirt and sweat. She had pushed the sleeves of her dress up, baring her lean, strong arms with their hatching of dark hair. In the confusion of her mother’s death, she had not thought to shave. There in the sharp, raking sunlight of the burial-place there was no mistaking her for anything but what she was. (Ibid., 155)

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It can thus be said, that the female (or male – in the case of Peredur) body is “viewed as

an obstacle to the performance of masculinity” in Reeve’s novel (Harper 2007, 515).

Generally, the portrayal of the body as a limitation to cross-dressing “reinscribes the

polarization of mature female and male bodies – they become so different that successful

cross-dressing is placed in jeopardy” (Ibid.). Considering the context of HLA, however, it may

be said that this depiction is part of the overall ‘message’ – that the performance of

masculinity by females and femininity by males is only impeded by the constraint of

dominant gender ideology, i.e. the belief that both gender and sex are binary and opposite

categories and that ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ are bound to specific bodies. In Jane

Yolen’s novel, Gawen’s body is no limitation to her performance and disguise. As a twenty-

one-year-old girl she appears as a thirteen-year-old boy and is not exposed as being female

until she decides for herself that it is time to tell the truth. This difference between the two

novels might be attributed to the fact that Yolen’s book rather belongs to the fantasy genre,

while Reeve’s story can be described as realistic, incorporating no elements of fantasy, except

the episodes in which Myrddin tells his stories, which are, however, explained as being mere

fantasy. Generally, it has to be noted that masculinity is successfully performed by the female

protagonists in both novels. This successful performance, as Flanagan (2008) explains,

“highlights the constructedness of socially prescribed gender norms” (253). Gender

stereotypes can be “positively subverted and reappropriated” by means of cross-dressing

(Ibid.), though not every text incorporating cross-dressers achieves this goal, as the

subsequent section demonstrates.

“I found it when I cleaned his wardrobe” – Cross-Dressing as Secondary Element The most obvious difference between the two selected novels regarding female-to-male

cross-dressing, as has already been mentioned, is the fact that in HLA the reader knows from

the beginning that Gwyn(a) is a girl, while the audience (most likely) remains unaware of

Gawen’s disguise in SOTRK until the end of the novel. As a result, Yolen’s SOTRK does not

particularly focus on how this female character performs masculinity, and examples of such

are hard to find. Indeed, revisiting the story, a reader might notice how, despite Gawen’s

wittiness and self-confidence, she embodies female stereotypes throughout the novel. As

Merlinnus’ apprentice, Gawen mainly has to take care of typical ‘housework chores’, for

example, cleaning up Merlinnus’ rooms: When all was put away to his satisfaction, Merlinnus had the boy sweep the floor of the tower room and carry the detritus upstairs in a basket. (Yolen 2003, 120)

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The ‘boy’, as seen through the eyes of focaliser Merlinnus, “glanced around the room as if

studying it. Not like a spy, Merlinnus thought, but like a contended housewife checking her

work.” (Ibid.) In this simile, Gawen is even directly compared to a ‘housewife’. After the

work has been done, Merlinnus orders: “Now go to the kitchen and fetch me some dinner”

(Ibid.), sounding like a commanding husband. Further duties of Gawen include “helping

Merlinnus – which meant bringing him food as well as getting his robes cleaned”, and helping

out in the castle’s kitchen, where the cook noticed the ‘boy’s’ “talent for baking” (Ibid., 212).

Only in a few instances, the performance of masculinity may be noticed. For example, when

Gawen suppresses the ‘feminine’ urge of expressing warmth, as laid out in ‘rule’ number four

of the ‘boy code’: Arthur said softly, “I thought the people loved me.” For a moment it looked as if Gawen was going to reach out and touch the king on his arm but then, as if thinking better of it, pulled his hand back, saying simply, “The ones who know you do.” (Ibid., 112)

In another scene, however, when nobody is watching, Gawen does express warmth and caring

feelings: Setting the tray down on a nearby table, Gawen drew a coverlet over the old man and left. (Ibid., 122)

In summary, it can be said that Gawen is “a female character who cross-dresses yet never

totally escapes her essential femininity” (Flanagan 2002, 80). As Flanagan (2002) explains,

not every text involving a female cross-dresser achieves “to destabilize the polarized

conceptions of masculinity and femininity” (Ibid.). It appears that this is the case with

SOTRK, in which “cross-dressing is secondary to the main events” of the story, which, as a

result, “is less successful in reassessing conventional gender codes” and thus also masculinity

(Ibid.).

“Then you must learn” – Masculinity and Femininity as Social Constructs While in Yolen’s novel the plot appears to be foregrounded, HLA clearly focuses on the

constructedness of both masculinity and femininity, and how characters learn to behave

‘appropriately’ in terms of gender. The focus on gender – and thus also masculinity – as a

construct, as something that is learned and acquired, already can be recognised in the

beginning, before Gwyna’s ‘transformation’, when the girl asks herself what it would be like to be a boy. Would I have to fight? Would I have to ride? Would I have to piss standing up? I was sure I couldn’t do any of those things. No one would ever take me for a boy, would they? (Reeve 2007, 35)

In her disguise as a boy, Gwyn(a) quickly becomes aware that being a boy is radically

different from being a girl. She also realises that there are certain ‘rules’ that she has to follow

in order to be accepted and integrated by the other boys:

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The things boys do – even the chores – are better fun than women’s work. Even the clothes are easier, once you grow used to them. There’s more to being a boy than wearing trews and cutting off your hair, of course, and don’t let anyone tell you different. There’s ways of moving and ways of standing still you have to learn. There’s a way of looking at things as if you don’t care about them, even when you care about them a lot. There are grunts that mean more than words. Boys have all sorts of rules among themselves, just like dogs. Rules about who leads and who follows. They don’t talk about them, they just seem to be born knowing these things. (Ibid., 42)

Activities, clothing, body movements, and more – Gwyn(a) mentions how “you have to learn”

such things (Ibid.). She even compares the ‘rules’ of boys with those of dogs. On the other

hand, she mentions that boys “seem to be born knowing these things” (Ibid.; my emphasis) –

the important word in this sentence being seem. Boys are not born knowing these things, to

Gwyna it just seems that they are, since they appear to know them so well. The other boys,

however, have grown up among boys and men, and Gwyn(a) has not, which is why she does

not know about these ‘rules’, which are inculcated into boys’ minds from an early stage. One

scene, in which it can be seen that boys copy the behaviour of other boys or men has already

been mentioned in this analysis, namely when Bedwyr hugs Gwyn(a) in “a brotherly, bearish

way he’d copied from the fighting men” (Ibid.:40). Gwyn(a), too, copies the behaviour of the

other boys, as has been seen in the analysis of the ‘boy code’, and joins them in battle instead

of obeying Myrddin’s order to stay with him. The more time Gwyn(a) spends as a boy, the

more she grows to like it: “On the whole I prefer being a boy” (Ibid.:43). Behaving like a boy,

and living the life of one, she even almost ‘forgets’ that she is not a boy, but a girl: My new life was so different that the old felt like it had never been at all. Even I was coming to think of myself as a boy. (Ibid., 45) A year has passed. It’s my second summer as a boy. I’ve almost forgotten that I ever was a girl. (Ibid., 59)

Being a boy gives Gwyn(a) freedoms she otherwise would not have been able to enjoy, and it

makes it possible for her to be friends with Bedwyr. Because of that, Gwyn(a) is disappointed

and even mad when Myrddin tells her that she can no longer be Gwyn, after King Maelwas

has seen through her disguise.

Just as masculinity is a construct, so is femininity. This becomes clear when Gwyn is

about to become Gwyna again: “I don’t want to be a girl!” I cried. “I’ll never be able to go home. People will recognize me!” “Of course they won’t,” said Myrddin. “[…] You will go back in a woman’s dress, with your long hair loose. You will walk like a girl and talk like a girl, and they will think, ‘That maiden looks a little like Gwyn,’ if they think anything at all. […]” “But I don’t know how to be a girl!” I told him. “I’ll have to do the things that women do…” I gaped like a fish, groping about for examples. I barely knew the things that women did. “Sewing and stitching and spinning and brewing barley-beer… What will they think when I don’t know how to do those things?” “Then you must learn.” (Ibid., 127)

The last sentence in this passage again shows how feminine behaviour, just as masculine

behaviour, is learned rather than innate. Even though Gwyn(a) is a girl, “she knows nothing

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of the ways of women. She knows about horses, and the hunt. […] But of being a maiden

among other maidens she knows nothing at all.” (Ibid., 133) The years Gwyn(a) has spent

almost solely surrounded by boys and men become a disadvantage, as she becomes Gwyna

again, and lead to her being excluded by her female peers – first, at the Irishman’s place,

where she learns ‘the way of women’, and later at Gwenhwyfar’s place, where she becomes

her maid: The girls and women of the household didn’t like me. They thought I was strange and clumsy and spoke too loud. (Ibid., 134) […] the other girls, hearing me say nothing but mumblings in my hilly accent and seeing how I was not pretty, nor well born, nor clever with a needle, decided I was simple, and left me alone. (Ibid., 142)

The more Gwyna learns about the ‘ways of women’, the less she likes being one. One of the

first ‘rules’ that she learns as a girl demonstrates the values of patriarchy and male privilege:

women “don’t speak to the menfolk unless they’re spoke to first” (Ibid., 134). Furthermore,

they sit for hours hours stitching and mending, which is slow torture, and embroidering, which is worse. […] They giggle. They whisper. They gossip. It wasn’t for me, that life. I missed Dewi and I missed my master. […] “I tried being girlish,” I’d tell him, “and it didn’t work. I’ve been too long a boy. My voice isn’t right. I don’t move like the rest of them. My stitches don’t hold. […]” And I told myself that Myrddin would see. He’d see his mistake. He’d find some other way, and I’d be a boy again. (Ibid.)

Gwyna is even more disappointed by her life as a girl when she comes to live as a maid in

Gwenhwyfar’s household: I swapped my knife for a bone needle, and my shield for a sewing-frame, and my dreams of hunts and battles for… well, for nothing, for I did not yet know what maidens dreamed about. Husbands, mostly, if the chatter of Nonnita’s girls had been anything to go by. But I didn’t want a husband. (Ibid., 141)

Throughout her time as a girl, Gwyna criticises how her life has become endlessly boring,

how adventure is reserved only for boys and men: There were no adventures in my future now, I thought, glaring bitterly at Myrddin’s back. Women don’t have them. They just suffer when their men’s adventures go wrong. (Ibid., 137) The small lives of women don’t make for good stories. That’s why there were no girls in the stories Myrddin told, unless they were there as a prize for the hero to win at the end of his adventures. (Ibid., 148) Gwenhwyfar’s hall felt empty now with Bedwyr gone, and the emptiness reminded me again how thin the lives of women were beside the lives of boys and men. (Ibid., 181)

Her new “hidden bidden life” as a girl comes as a shock to her, just as when she’d “first

become a boy” (Ibid.:141), but just as she had come to learn how to live like a boy, she soon

adapts to life as a girl, conforming to the feminine behaviour that is expected of her: My life as a boy lies far behind me, vague and half-forgotten. […] I’m quite a young lady, you see. I gossip with the other girls my own age, and look after the young ones, and serve my mistress, and at the moment I am trying to catch the eye of the young man who has been sent out with us as an escort. […] the girls vie with each other to see who can walk closest to him. Unfortunately he has eyes only for Celemon. (Ibid., 158)

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Gwyna has realised that the “worlds of men and women were as different as night and day, air

and water” (Ibid., 142) and having lived in both worlds, comes to the conclusion that she

“didn’t fit in either” (Ibid.). This statement can be interpreted as being a critique of the

rigidity and duality of gender categories. Flanagan (2002) explains how the ‘cross-dressing

subject’ is “a subject who essentially belongs to neither category” – masculine or feminine –

“yet also belongs to both in his/her amalgamation and reconstruction of masculine and

feminine gendered behaviors” (89). When Gwyna stays at Myrddin’s place toward the end of

the novel, after Arthur’s beheading of Bedwyr, the bard’s boy servant is confused, not

knowing whether Gwyna is a girl or a boy: I sat by the fire in his own spare tunic and a pair of old trews, eating bread which I smeared with sooty white fat from a skillet that stood on the hearth. The boy watched me like I was a spirit sprung out of the flames. Even with my hair grown I looked boyish in those clothes. Whatever I’d learned of grace and girlishness, the night had wrung it out of me. Cadwy couldn’t tell what I was. (Reeve 2007, 215)

In the end, Gwyn(a) and Peredur kiss and it appears they are in love, but Gwyn(a) still decides

to continue living as Gwyn, son of Myrddin. As Flanagan (2008) states, in children’s literature female cross-dressing narratives often construct masculinity and femininity as options which the cross-dress is able to adopt and disregard at will. (14)

This, it appears, is exactly the case with Gwyn(a). While Gwen in SOTRK leaves her life as

Gawen behind when getting married to Arthur, Reeve’s Gwyn(a) constructs her own gender

identity. The closures of the novel are thus radically different. On his deathbed, Myrddin tells

Gwyna: “Gwyna,” he said. “You’ve been a good daughter to me. And a good son, too.” (Reeve 2007, 271)

In uttering this statement, Myrddin “confirms this novel’s ultimate truth: that gender roles are

flexible, teachable, and therefore artificial” (Tolhurst 2012, 75).

“Not Quite As He’d Expected” – The ‘World of Men’ Even though Peri/Peredur is actually a boy, and thus his experience technically cannot

be described as an act of female-to-male cross-dressing, he nevertheless has to learn the ways

of ‘traditional’ masculinity, since he was brought up as a girl, kept in the belief that he is one.

In Gwyn(a)’s words: “This boy must have been treated as a girl his whole life long, and it had

never occurred to him that he might be anything else.” (Reeve 2007, 77) However, when

Arthur and his warriors arrive at Peri’s home, something changes: “Not seen their like?” I asked. I remembered how she’d stared and stared at them, the night before. She looked round, startled to find me there, then smiling. “Never! They’re so shiny! So beautiful! Is Arthur as brave as they say? He looks brave! When I saw you all coming up the hill yesterday I thought it was God’s own angels come down to earth…” (Ibid., 69)

When the war-band has left for Aquae Sulis, Peri first starts to ‘cross-dress’ as a boy: The visitors enchanted her, and filled her eyes for weeks, long after the last glitter of their helms and harness had vanished into the haze of sea-spray on the road. But she didn’t want to marry any

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of them. She wanted to be like them. She wanted to have a horse, and go riding far away into the wide world on it, and leave the lonely hall behind. (Ibid., 152)

Later, Peredur tells Gwyn(a): “I’ve never forgot that day! That was the first time I’d seen men, real men. I was so jealous of you, riding off with Arthur.” (Ibid., 231-2)

When Peri’s mother dies, Peredur finds out that he is a boy. Because of his disguise, Saint

Porroc, the greedy monk, who now takes possession of Peredur’s mother’s premises,

describes him as a sinner. Consequently, Peredur punches him “in the middle of his holy

face” (Ibid., 155). Peredur’s first action as a boy thus is an act of violence, following the

second ‘rule’ of the ‘boy code’. However, Peredur is not angry at the saint for taking hold of

his home, rather, he is glad that he had “[t]old him what he was. A boy. A young man. His

man’s name made him proud now.” (Ibid., 156). He resolves to seek Arthur’s war-band and

join them.

In Aquae Sulis, however, Peredur is not greeted as a ‘real’ man at first, being laughed

at by the women he encounters because of his makeshift warrior attire and kitchen knife. As

“[h]e reaches up to hold his pot in place with a soft, womanish gesture”, the girls around

Gwyna only “titter louder” (Ibid., 161). Peredur sees his chance to prove his worth when,

soon after his arrival, a raider tries to abduct Cei’s daughter, Celemon: “I’ll stop him!” called Peredur. “I’ll save her!” He dug his heels into the flanks of his horse and was away, holding his pot on his head with one hand, clinging to the bridle with the other, a scared girl diving out of his path. (Ibid., 165)

Having no experience in fighting or riding, Peredur soon falls off his horse. Gwyna, who –

with a bunched-up skirt – has run after him, saves him from the blade of the raider’s sword.

When Peredur gains consciousness again, Gwyna tells him that he has fought the raider, who

is now dead – he has drowned in the river. When Peredur returns to the group of girls, who

had laughed at him before, he is suddenly greeted differently: They cooed and sighed about him, and saved their smiles for Peredur, who rode ahead on the dead raider’s roan mare, clutching the dead man’s sword and looking confused but happy to find himself so suddenly a man. Celemon, who was unhurt, was busy telling everyone how brave he had been; how he had challenged the man who’d taken her, and stuck one of those silly willow-spears clean through him. (Ibid., 168)

It seems that, by chivalrously winning a fight and saving a girl, Peredur has proven himself to

be a man – in accordance with the second ‘rule’ of the ‘boy code’, which foregrounds male

strength and fighting skills. However, Peredur does not successfully manage to integrate into

Arthur’s war-band and to adapt to their ideal of masculinity. When Arthur and his men return

from a battle, having taken revenge on the raiders, Gwyna watches as the party returns to

Aquae Sulis:

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The cattle driven off in that first raid came home again, along with Arthur and his riders, flushed with revenge and carrying the heads of three dead raiders on spears. I saw Peredur ride in with them, still looking bewildered by it all. (Ibid., 172)

Gwyna tries to justify Peredur’s behaviour in front of the other girls, who have returned to

laughing at him for being ‘different’: It wasn’t that he was cracked, I tried telling Celemon and the rest. Just he’d been raised different, and come to things by his own road. He’d not grown up around fighting men, the way we had. […] But the girls teased him more, and laughed at the way he followed Celemon with his eyes […] (Ibid., 173)

In the analysis of Peredur’s character, it can be seen that not only other males disapprove of a

display of ‘non-traditional’ masculinity, but also how females criticise and ridicule such non-

conformity.

Just as other people are disappointed in Peredur for not conforming to ‘traditional’

masculinity, Peredur is disappointed by his life as a young man, as Gwyna observes: I think the world of men was not turning out to be quite as he’d expected. He was not quite what they’d expected, either. He didn’t speak the language of men. He didn’t know the rules I’d learned in my time among the boys. Cei and Medrawt and the rest treated him now as a simpleton; a sort of mascot. […] Peredur didn’t ride with them again that summer, but stayed with the garrison in Sulis. (Ibid., 172-3)

Peredur has to stay at home, excluded by the other boys and men, because he is not familiar

with their ‘rules’, the ‘rules’ of how to be a ‘real’ man. That Peredur never loses his

‘feminine’ behaviour can also be seen later on, when Gwyna – out of her own decision –

becomes Gwyn again, and follows Peredur and the others whom Arthur has sent away after he

has murdered Bedwyr. Gwyna’s reason for deciding to ride after Peredur is the following: I couldn’t bear the thought of him riding off to that war. Not even a real war, but one made up to serve Arthur’s purposes, a needless, reasonless war, spun out of lies. […] He’d change the same way Bedwyr had. The last of his girlishness would be gone from him, and he’d be just a man like all the rest. (Ibid., 222)

Peredur’s ‘girlishness’, however, is not yet entirely gone. At the campfire, Gwyn(a) tells the

story of Gwenhwyfar and Bedwyr, embellishing it – just as she had learned from Myrddin, so

that it would make a beautiful love story: Sometimes, in the firelight, on one face or another, I’d see tears running down. Peredur was one of the tearful ones. He never tried to hide what he was feeling, the way the others had all learned to. Once he came to me after a story and hugged me and thanked me for telling it. (Ibid., 231)

About the same time, after Gwyna has become Gwyn again, she first starts to feel that she

actually prefers being a girl. This stands at odds with what she had previously felt – that she

liked being a boy more than a girl. However, at that time, she had not really known what the

life of a girl was like – as a slave girl, before she met Myrddin, she had been viewed and

treated more like an animal than a human being. Having experienced the life of girls,

however, Gwyn(a) now feels different: Riding alone, listening to snatches of their banter blowing back to me on the breeze, I got to missing my life among the girls. I never thought I would, and never a day went by I didn’t feel

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glad to be up on a horse and going somewhere instead of trapped indoors, but I wished I’d had Celemon there to tell some of my inward thoughts to. Girls tell each other things, in honest whispers, when the night is drawing on. Boys just brag. (Ibid., 230)

This passage discloses the oppressiveness of gender expectations on both sides. Females

suffer from the disadvantage of being ‘trapped indoors’, males suffer from society’s

expectations that they are required to suppress their true feelings – as in the fourth imperative

of the ‘boy code’. When the war-party around Peredur and Gwyn(a) are attacked, both of

them realise that this world of men, of fighting and war, is not for them: Peredur was weak and feverish, inclined to sleep. Bad dreams kept waking him, and he would jerk his eyes open and say, “I was so afraid. I should have stayed a girl.” So should I, I thought. (Ibid., 243)

The situation is different in Yolen’s SOTRK. Right before getting married to Arthur, Gwen

begins to regret that she no longer is the boy, Gawen. While Gwyna and Peredur in HLA have

realised the downsides of boyhood/manhood, Gwen misses the ‘easy life’ she had had

disguised as Gawen: This is a mistake, Gwen thought miserably. We scarce know each other as man and woman, only as king and boy. How will I speak to him? How will he respond? She longed to be back in her boy’s clothes, her hair cropped short and out of her eyes. That boy – that hidden creature – had known how to talk to Arthur. How to cozen him and correct him. Boys, she thought, have the easier time of it. She wished at that moment that she were a boy again. (Yolen 2003, 346-7)

In this passage, Yolen’s novel not only alludes to the constraints of patriarchy, it also hints at

what readers experience throughout Reeve’s story – that gender is a construct and that being

female does not exclude a person from performing masculinity, just as being male does not

exclude one from performing femininity. Gwen refers to the boy inside her as “that hidden

creature”, suggesting that inside every girl and woman there is more than stereotypical

‘femininity’, waiting to be freed – the same can be said of boys and men. In Judith

Halberstam’s (1998) words, “masculinity must not and cannot and should not reduce down to

the male body and its effects” (1). That masculinity is not reduced to male bodies can be seen

in both novels, in which the female protagonists in disguise successfully perform masculinity.

The constructedness of the categories ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’, however, is

foregrounded only in Reeve’s narrative, in which traditional gender roles eventually are

inverted in the end, when Gwyn(a), having returned to Peredur from the battlefield where she

had witnessed Arthur’s death, feels that she deserves to kiss her Peredur: I felt like I’d ridden a long way, through battles and bad country, and he was my girl, waiting for me at journey’s end. “Yes,” I said, “she did.” And I kissed him again.” (Reeve 2007, 285)

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6 Conclusion

The aim of this paper was to analyse the concept of masculinity in Jane Yolen’s Sword

of the Rightful King and Philip Reeve’s Here Lies Arthur, based on the imperatives of the

‘boy code’, as well as to examine the performance of masculinity by the cross-dressed

protagonists in order to find out whether the novels foreground traditional, dominant

masculinity. The decision to choose Arthurian narratives for the analysis of masculinity was

based on the assumption that retellings offer important insights into the producing culture

(Stephens 2009, 91), as well as on the fact that the Arthurian legend traditionally

“foregrounds the masculine ideology of chivalry” (Shaw 2009, 466). This chapter summarises

the findings of the analysis. The first part of the analysis focused on the imperatives of the

‘boy code’ as discussed by Pollack (1999). ‘Rule’ number one of the ‘boy code’ concerns the

requirement that boys/men should hide pain, fear, weakness and tears. As the analysis has

shown, compliance with this rule is evident in SOTRK, in which particularly the characters of

Agravaine, Gawaine and Merlinnus adhere to this imperative. King Arthur himself, on the one

hand, does not comply with this ‘rule’, weeping for the death of his beloved dog. On the other

hand, however, he congratulates his stepbrother, Kay, for hiding his fear of enclosed spaces

from the other men and showing bravery and courage instead. In Reeve’s novel, it is Bedwyr,

in particular, who adheres to this imperative of the code, while Peredur, having grown up as a

girl, does not hide his tears when Gwyn(a) tells the embellished love story of Gwenhwyfar

and Bedwyr.

The second ‘rule’ of the ‘boy code’ not only allows, but requires boys and men to act

violently and aggressively. In both novels, excessively violent and aggressive characters are

‘villains’ – Agravaine in SOTRK and Arthur in HLA – which suggests that these qualities are

not admirable. However, fighting among peers as well as the use of violence to gain one’s

will and to exert power is presented in SOTRK as being common for boys and men. The issue

of war – which is historically linked to ideas of masculinity – is particularly addressed in

Reeve’s HLA, in which battles are deglorified and presented as gruesome and bloody as they

really are. The gruesomeness of war is the primary reason why both Gwyn(a) and Peredur are

‘disappointed’ by manhood, the rules of which claiming that running from a battlefield is

‘cowardly’ and ‘womanish’. ‘Boys will be boys’ and will always fight. This is what Gwyn(a)

believes when she joins her first battle, but after having experienced it first-hand, she comes

to think differently. She pities the other boys who will soon be warriors and will have to get

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used to participating in such bloody battles. Similarly, Peredur desperately wants to join

Arthur’s war-band, but after having experienced the horrors of fighting, he feels out of place,

wishing he had continued life as a woman. Bedwyr dutifully follows the path of a warrior, but

has to realise that he is no longer regarded as a ‘man’ after having been injured. He seeks

‘meaning’ somewhere else: in the arms of his uncle’s wife.

The third imperative of the ‘boy code’ focuses on the attainment of power and

dominance. This issue is particularly addressed in Yolen’s SOTRK, in which it is

predominantly a female character, Morgause, who is obsessed with achieving power over

others, which is why she is even regarded as having “the heart of a man” (Yolen 2003, 225).

Strength of arm is foregrounded in SOTRK as being a particularly masculine trait, though in

the end it is Gawen/Gwen’s wit that overrules strength. Reeve’s novel, too, deals with the

issue of power, and it is also a villainous character who strives for it the most: Arthur. His

greed for power and dominance is continuously criticised throughout the novel, with

Gwenhwyfar ultimately stating that power should be given to those who do not want it. The

fourth ‘rule’ of the ‘boy code’ concerns the suppression of all urges and feelings that might be

considered ‘feminine’ – the only emotion that is allowed is anger. Compliance with this rule

can be observed in both novels. In SOTRK, it is the villainous character Agravaine, who is

always angry, but also King Arthur – especially in situations in which he appears to be

overwhelmed or craving adventure instead of his ‘hard’ throne. In Reeve’s novel, Arthur is

angry, too, and it is frequently referred to in the narrative how boys learn to hide their

‘sweetness’ as they grow up – as it happens with Bedwyr in the novel. Gwyna fears the same

thing will happen to Peredur as well, when she finds out that he knows about his real sex, but

Peredur retains his ‘sweetness’. The fifth aspect that has been analysed, which is not part of

the ‘boy code’, but nevertheless important, concerns the expression of sexual desire for

females, which is frequently accompanied by the practice of sexualising and objectifying

women. The sexualisation and objectification of women is clearly criticised in both novels.

Yolen’s SOTRK particularly focuses on this issue with addressing the ‘May Queen’ question.

Nevertheless, the closure of SOTRK foregrounds the feminine beauty ideal as has been seen in

the analysis.

The second part of the analysis focused on the use and effect of cross-dressing in the

selected novels, dealing with the performance of masculinity by Gawen/Gwen in SOTRK, and

Gwyn/a and Peri/Peredur in HLA. The experiences of the cross-dressers are especially

foregrounded in Reeve’s Arthurian narrative, in which the constructedness of masculinity and

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gender as a whole becomes obvious. While in SOTRK it appears that “cross-dressing is

secondary to the main events”, and thus “is less successful in reassessing conventional gender

codes” (Flanagan 2002, 80), the effect of cross-dressing in Reeve’s novel is different. The

rigidity and duality of gender categories are emphasises throughout HLA, and it is described

in detail how Gwyn/a and Peri/Peredur have to learn the ‘rules’ of being male or female.

These ‘rules’ are continuously described and criticised. Having lived in both worlds, Gwyn/a

comes to the conclusion that she “didn’t fit in either” (Reeve 2007, 142) and eventually

constructs her own gender identity, travelling the country as Gwyn, son of Myrddin. Ideally,

this is what cross-dressing narratives should accomplish, Flanagan (2002) suggests. These

narratives should seek to disrupt preconceived notions relating to masculine and feminine gendered persons by demonstrating the artificiality of such constructs through the behavior and actions of a cross-dressing subject – a subject who essentially belongs to neither category, yet also belongs to both in his/her amalgamation and reconstruction of masculine and feminine gendered behaviors. (89)

While G(a)wen in Yolen’s SOTRK ‘returns’ to being female in the end of the novel, when she

marries Arthur, wishing she could be a boy again, Gwyn/a constructs her own gender identity,

combining elements of both. While G(a)wen looks back at her time as a boy as a time when

everything was easy, Gwyn/a is aware of the downsides and negative aspects of being male,

and familiar with the rigidity of identity ‘codes’ and polarised notions of gender.

Literature produced for children should ideally do what Reeve’s narrative achieves: to

reveal the “artificiality” (Ibid.) and constructedness of gender, and to offer alternatives. While

through the influence of the feminist movements, “brave, smart, resourceful” female

protagonists have become common in children’s literature (Simmons 2009, 156) as well as in

modern Arthuriana, providing alternative masculinities for male characters has largely been

neglected, even though Flanagan (2010) states, that a number of children’s texts already

depict “‘new’ masculinities emerging in opposition to hegemonic masculinity” (36).

Traditional, hegemonic masculinity, as Nodelman (2002) writes, “represents an ideal and

impossible-to-achieve state of being” (11) – it shares this aspect with the ideal of chivalry, so

important in the Arthurian tradition. Because of the impossibility to achieve this ideal,

Schrock and Schwalbe (2009) argue, “adjustments must be made” (286). In order to challenge

and change not only dominant masculinity, but dominant gender ideology as a whole, it is

necessary to consider masculinity and the depiction of male characters in literature –

particularly in literature produced for the young, who in these texts discover potential

behavioural models that may guide and influence them in their actions, thoughts, decisions

and desires.

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Of the two selected novels that have been analysed in the main part of this thesis,

Reeve’s narrative stands out in terms of studying masculinity, as it is “hugely successful at

revealing masculinity as a social construct” (Flanagan 2010, 28) and at subverting gender

stereotypes and expectations, while at the same time offering alternatives to the rigid,

polarised gender roles and identities. As Pollack (1999) argues, “[w]e can become aware of

the boy stereotypes even the best of us carry in our minds, and consciously work to eliminate

them from society, from our thinking and our language” (xxvi). Analysing such ‘boy

stereotypes’ in children’s fiction, especially in stories that are being retold, such as the

Arthurian legends, can be a first step in this direction. The ‘boy code’, Pollack suggests, “puts

boys and men into a gender straitjacket that constrains not only them but everyone else”

(Ibid., 6). In order to change this situation, readers, writers, critics and parents alike need to

become aware of the constraints of the ‘boy code’, which is nothing more than “a cultural

construct, something we impose on boys that we can move past” (Nodelman 2002, 10).

“Together,” as Pollack writes, “we can unlearn the Boy Code” (1998, 25; my emphasis),

leave behind the destructive patterns, the idealised, impossible-to-achieve expectations of

‘manhood’, and recognise that masculinity is constructed and learned behaviour, which does

not have to be based on any ‘code’.

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