A thousand years ago, in a time of knights, chivalry and honour, there was a dream called Camelot.  The dreamer wanted the greatest most honourable knights to fight for him in the name of justice and peace for all.  His ideals allowed for the poorest peasant to live without fear of the Baron.  His world, during its peak, is forever remembered as a glorious time, a golden age.  However something happened along the way.  A feud was started and the great serenity was lost forever.  It is the story of King they called Arthur.  His myth has been written by hundreds of different authors, in dozens of different ways.  Arthur was created as he is, by literature.  The popularity of medieval fantasy and romances has continued to grow steadily over the ages.  Different people enjoy different aspects of these stories, the romance, the adventure or the magic.  An aspect that is often overlooked is the great tragedy of the wonderful king.  Our society has been groomed to enjoy tragedies and the focus of these plays and novels are heroes that must meet specific requirements.  King Arthur, the man, the visionary and the legend meets the requirements of a tragic hero.

    During the 4th century BC, a Greek philosopher by the name of Aristotle outlined the fundamental structure, the intended effect and the purpose of Greek tragedy in his book Poetics.  The basic ideas regarding the tragic hero outlined in Aristotle’s text will be used throughout this essay to attempt to prove my thesis.

    The tragic hero must occupy an important position in society.  As a king, Arthur holds the highest position in his medieval society.  He is also the rightful heir to his throne.  This is important to the Chain of Being.  Although Sir Ector raised him, away from the royal court, Arthur emerged and brought unity to Britain.  This was not an easy task.  He gained the crown in an unconventional manner.  Arthur successfully pulled the Sword in the Stone.  This was a great slab of stone in which was set a steel anvil.  Firmly held in the anvil was a large sword.  “Who so pulleth out this sword from this stone and anvil, is the true-born King of all England” (Hulpach, pg 37).  Merlin later reveals that Arthur is the son of Uther Pendragon, the late King and that the magician had taken Arthur away as an infant in an effort to protect him from his enemies.  Several smaller Kings, such as King Lot, chose to oppose this claim but after many years of war, Arthur successfully controlled the country in peace.  He is generally held to be a good, fair and honest King.  He imposed a set of rules on his Knights, this code is often known as chivalry.  He asked that they use they use their sword only to protect the innocent and never to use it to repress the weak.  The importance of Arthur’s nobility is that his influence extends throughout all of England.  His downfall has grave implications for an entire nation.

    Arthur is King, but he is also human.  Like all humans he is not perfect.  He has certain qualities that allow the reader to relate with him.   He is not raised knowing that he is a prince, although he may have had more protection than normal children.  Mary Stewart suggests in her novel The Hollow Hills that Arthur was raised specially without the knowledge of his special future.

“I understood that he [Arthur] lived under hard discipline: that kings must be brought up harder than other men he must have known, but not that the rule applied to him. “ (pg. 305)

    Throughout the story there is foreshadowing that Mordred wishes to take his father’s crown.  Mordred is an external force that Arthur must oppose.  His origins are quite interesting, he is the result of an incestuous affair between the king and one of his half-sisters.  It is much debated as to which sister was the culprit between Morgan LeFay and Morgause.  For the purpose of this essay, we will use Morgause, mother of Gawaine, Agravaine, Gaheris and Gareth, queen of Oakney.  The other debated aspect is to why Arthur slept with her.  It is often accepted that Arthur was unaware of the relation, but there is a question as to if Morgause used magic to seduce the young king.  Mary Stewart’s version of the story has Arthur believing that he is Merlin’s son and therefore unrelated to her.  However the wicked sister knows very well who Arthur actually is.  In T.H. White’s compilation of books The Once and Future King, there is a book dedicated to Morgause.  It describes her evil use of magic.  It is important to note Mordred ancestry, as T.H. White wrote at the end of The Queen of Air and Darkness.

“It is why Sir Thomas Malory called his very long book the Death of Arthur.  Although nine tenths of the story seems to be about knights jousting and quests for the holy grail and things of that sort, the narrative is a whole, and it deals with the reasons why the young man came to grief at the end.” (White, pg. 310)

 Arthur is in part responsible for the events surrounding Mordred.  In his innocence, he made an error in judgement.  He unknowingly enjoyed the pleasures of his half-sister.  Although there is the suggestion of witchcraft, Arthur still performed the actions that led to the conception of Mordred.

    The error of judgement may have been due to a “tragic flaw”.  This flaw may have been lust.  Mary Stewart’s describes why Arthur would have willingly laid with Morgause:

“The boy had seized one half of his manhood today out under the sun; it was inevitable that the rest should come to him tonight.  As his sword had quenched it’s lust in blood, so the boy would burn alive till he quenched his own excitement in a girl’s body.” (Stewart, pg. 389)

    The events that follow the original crime of incest many years later are so terrible that they certainly exceed the punishment needed for the crime.  In the war between Launcelot and Arthur, over half the Knights of the Round Table are killed.  Thousands of other soldiers also find the grave for the petty war.  Arthur returns to England, his matters with Launcelot unresolved, because he has learned of Mordred treachery.

“As Sir Mordred was ruler of all England, he did make letters as though that they came from beyond the sea, and the letters specified that King Arthur was slain in battle with Sir Launcelot.  Wherefore Sir Mordred made a parliament, and called the lords together, and there he made them to choose him king; and so was he crowned at Canterbury.” (Malory, pg 784)

    “The tragic hero must undergo great mental torment and suffering which causes pity and fear in the reader.” (Carter)  Arthur often weeps at events in Malory’s version of the tale.  He slowly loses friends and family as the story end.  As king he had done so much for his country and yet one must question what more he could have done if given the chance.

    The death of Arthur actually leaves us with a feeling of hope.  Arthur does not die in the myth.  Three queens dressed in black show up on a magic barge to bring him to the island of Avalon.  The legend claims that he will return to rule again.  Written on his tomb is “Hic jacet Arthurus, Rex quondam, Rexque futurus. “ (Malory, pg. 794)  It translates to “Here lies Arthur, the once and future king”.  The death of Arthur is surrounded with magic and mystery and gives us a sense of life after death

    Tragedy was not considered to be “entertainment” by the Greeks.  They believed it gave the members of the community valuable lessons in life and contributed to the good health of society.  The myth of Arthur gives us a sense of adventure and romance but also of triumph and loss.   We travel through the life of a man, who has great position and influence in his society.  Like all of us he is flawed and vulnerable.  We identify with him and feel that he does not deserve the punishment he has received.

    Arthur is a hero who transcends time.  His ideas of chivalry have made him a romantic idol and the adventures he and his knights have experienced have always trilled readers of all ages.  Some may see the legend as a romance, a love triangle between Guenevere, Arthur and Launcelot.  Others enjoy it as a fantasy genre with its tales of knights and dragons.  Yet in essence, if you look at how everything in the book is related, the myth is a tragedy and King Arthur is its hero.

Great Books; Le Morte d’Arthur: Films for the Humanities & Sciences.  Princeton, New Jersey: The Learning Channel.  1994 (50 minutes)

Tragedy.  http://www.oocities.org/Athens/Olympus/2814/tragedy (June 23rd 2000)

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Bradley, Marian Zimmer.  The Mists of Avalon.  United States of America: Ballontine Books, 1984.

Carter, Ron.  Aristotle. http://vccslitonline.cc.va.us/tragedy/aristotle.htm (June 23rd 2000)

Foss, Michael. Chivalry.  London: Book Club Associates, 1975.

Hulpach, Valdimir.  King Arthur: Stories of the Knights of the Round Table.  Czechoslovakia: The Hamlyn Publishing Group Int., 1988.

Jennings, Philip S.  Medieval Legends. United States of America: St. Martin’s Press, 1983.

Knowles, Sir James.  King Arthur and his Knights.  New York: Dilithium Press Ltd, Children’s Classics Division, 1968.

Layamon and Robert Wace, translated by Eugene Mason.  Arthurian Chronicles.   Great Britain: Everyman’s Library, 1962.

Malory, Sir Thomas.  Le Morte Darthur.  Ed. Tom Griffith.  Kent, Great Britain: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1996.

Stewart, Mary.  The Hollow Hills.  London: Coronet Books, 1974.

Lord Tennyson, Alfred.  Idyllis of the King: and a Selection of Poems.  New York: The New American Library of World Literature, 1961.

White, T.H.  The Once and Future King. Canada: Fontana Books. 1979.