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When Meghan Basham signed on for college lit courses, she "got the gist of it--Wife of Bath: enlightened; Edmund Spenser: uptight, if brilliant, prude. And had I not uncharacteristically turned one night to an original Vulgate-cycle source for an already overdue paper on Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur, I might have gone on taking academia's word for it, congratulating myself for shrugging off the yoke of Christian morality that was my sad, oppressive heritage."
Modern academics are marooned in our time, cynical about the Judeo-Christian moorings of our culture and literature. They can do little besides be glib and shallow. But a funny thing happened to Basham on the way to having a laugh at Sir Lancelot's expense:
"[T]he Lancelot of The Quest was not the tragic, romantic figure depicted in later incarnations. Rather than Malory's notion that star-crossed love caused his (and, by extension, Arthur and Camelot's) downfall, The Quest suggested that common lust alone brought him low, and that nothing noble or romantic followed from it: 'Growing conscious of Guinevere's glances [Lancelot] ... set his feet in the path of lust, the path which degrades both body and soul to a degree that none can really know who has not tried it.'
"This Lancelot was a prideful man who dismissed his nagging conscience in favor of a chivalric sham that suited his desires better. This Lancelot--beautiful, gifted, favored with every material asset, and assured he could achieve every great thing--had been taught to honor the tenets of the Christian faith and was expected to offer God some return on his blessings. Instead, selfish pursuits dulled his interest in all but the lowest passions, causing hermit after hermit to rebuke him: '[Our Lord] gave you beauty in full measure; He gave you understanding, and wit enough to distinguish good from evil; courage He gave you ... and over and above He gave you such good fortune that success has crowned your every undertaking ... And you were so careless of your trust that you basely forsook Him.'"
Modern academics are marooned in our time, cynical about the Judeo-Christian moorings of our culture and literature. They can do little besides be glib and shallow. But a funny thing happened to Basham on the way to having a laugh at Sir Lancelot's expense:
"[T]he Lancelot of The Quest was not the tragic, romantic figure depicted in later incarnations. Rather than Malory's notion that star-crossed love caused his (and, by extension, Arthur and Camelot's) downfall, The Quest suggested that common lust alone brought him low, and that nothing noble or romantic followed from it: 'Growing conscious of Guinevere's glances [Lancelot] ... set his feet in the path of lust, the path which degrades both body and soul to a degree that none can really know who has not tried it.'
"This Lancelot was a prideful man who dismissed his nagging conscience in favor of a chivalric sham that suited his desires better. This Lancelot--beautiful, gifted, favored with every material asset, and assured he could achieve every great thing--had been taught to honor the tenets of the Christian faith and was expected to offer God some return on his blessings. Instead, selfish pursuits dulled his interest in all but the lowest passions, causing hermit after hermit to rebuke him: '[Our Lord] gave you beauty in full measure; He gave you understanding, and wit enough to distinguish good from evil; courage He gave you ... and over and above He gave you such good fortune that success has crowned your every undertaking ... And you were so careless of your trust that you basely forsook Him.'"
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