Professor Borges - A Course on English Literature

According to Andrew Lang, the famousScottish critic and Hellenist, these first creations, almost scribbled with his pen, written almost with indifference, as one who abandons himself to a pleasure rather than carries out a scrupulous labor, are among his most felicitous. 2 A bit later today we will look at some of them. I have brought a copy of his first book,
The Defence of Guenevere
. 3 Guenevere—I suppose “Genoveva” would be another form of the name—is the wife of King Arthur, and her love affair with Sir Lancelot is what led Paolo and Francesca, inDante’s imagination, to commit their sin. William Morris begins his poetry with the subject that in the Middle Ages was called
matière de Bretagne
. There are some verses by a French poet (whose name I have forgotten) that assert that there are three subjects worthy of poetry, and those subjects are:
la matière de France
—that is, the stories of Roland and Charlemagne and their peers, and the Battle of Roncevaux Pass. 4 Then,
la matière de Bretagne
: the story of King Arthur, who fought against the Saxons at the beginning of the sixth century and to whom were compared many of Charlemagne’s great deeds, so that the King Arthur of legend became, like Charlemagne almost was, a universal king of sorts. They also attribute to him the invention of the Round Table, a table that had no head, so there would be no hierarchy among those sitting around it, and that magically adapted to the number of diners: it shrank when there were six and could grow to comfortably accommodate over sixty knights. Also forming part of the legend of
matière de Bretagne
are the stories about the Holy Grail, that is, the cup that contained the wine Jesus drank during the last supper. And in that same cup—the word “grail” is related to the word “crater,” which is also a kind of cup—in that same cup, Joseph of Arimathea kept the blood of Christ. 5 In other versions of the legend, the Grail is not a cup, it is a precious supernatural stone that the angels brought from heaven. The knights of King Arthur devote themselves to searching for the Holy Grail. Lancelot could have found that cup, but he did not deserve to find it because he had sinned with the wife of the king. And so it is that a son of his, Sir Galahad, the
Galeotto
from Dante’s famous verses, is the one who finally possesses the cup. 6 As for King Arthur, he is said to have fought twelve battles against the Saxons, and he was defeated in the last one. This inevitably led in the nineteenth century to King Arthur being identified with a sun myth: twelve is the number of months. And in the last battle he was defeated, wounded, and taken by three women in mourning in a black skiff to the magical island of Avalon; and for a long time it was believed that he would return to rescue his people. 7 The same was said in Norway about Olaf, who was called
Rex perpetuus Norvegiae
. 8 The same belief about a king returning can be found in Portugal. There the personage is King Don Sebastian, defeated by the Moors in the Battle of Alcácer Quibir, and who will one day return. 9 And it is curious that this mystical belief, the
sebastianismo
, the idea that a king will return, can also be found in Brazil: at the end of the nineteenth century there was someone named Antônio Conselheiro among the “
jagunços
,” the cowboys of the north of Brazil, who also said that Sebastian would return. 10
    All of this, the
matière de Bretagne
, comprises a collection of legends that were not unknown to Shakespeare and were used by William Morris and his illustrious contemporary,Tennyson—Browning’s friend—about whom we will not have time to talk.
    There was a third subject allowed to poets of the Middle Ages. The French poet’s line says “
de France, de Bretaigne et de Romme la grant
.” 11 But the material of Rome was not just Roman history, but also—because Aeneas was Trojan—the story of Troy, and the story of Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great is said to have had the desire to conquer paradise, after having conquered Earth. And in the legend, Alexander arrives at a high wall, and from the wall he drops one speck of dust. Then Alexander understands that he is that speck of dust, the material to which he will be reduced in the end, and he gives up the conquest of paradise. This is like the six feet of earth the Saxon king promises to the Norwegian king in the Battle of Stamford Bridge. 12
    But let us return to William