The Story of King Arthur and His Knights

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1903

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Book 1, Prologue-Part 1

Book 1, Part 2

Book 1, Part 3

Book 2, Foreword-Part 1

Book 2, Part 2

Book 2, Part 3

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

Kingship as Instructive Model for Citizenship

One of the primary aims of The Story of King Arthur and His Knights is to present the reader with moral lessons. Pyle portrays Arthur as the shining example of masculinity: “the King was at once the looking-glass of all knighthood and likewise the very fountain-head of honor” (192), and the narrator explicitly connects the reader to Arthur. For instance, the narrator says, “I would wish that you might win your battle as King Arthur won his battle” (92). Not only does the narrator hope the reader will succeed, but also offers advice on how to behave like Arthur. Telling stories in order to teach moral lessons is called writing in a didactic manner.

What Pyle, and his narrator, strive to teach the reader is how to behave like a “true belted knight” (109), or in a chivalric manner. The reader fighting on the side of “Truth” and “Faith” will cause them to be “as well able to fight all your battles as did that noble hero of old [...] Arthur” (95). Another behavior that Arthur exhibits that the reader should emulate is to always ask: “What more is there that I may do to make the world better” (122). Furthermore, the narrator praises Arthur’s capacity for forgiveness and familial love. In Book 1, Part 1, when he discovers he is king, Arthur still demonstrates love for his adoptive father, Ector. In the story of Merlin, Arthur forgives his half-sister Morgana: “for her mother was my mother, and the blood which flows in her veins and in my veins cometh from the same fountainhead, wherefore I will do no evil thing against her” (246). Arthur is then emulated by his knights, who recognize their king as a paragon of knightly virtue.

The narrator includes stories about other Knights of the Round Table in Book 2 because “their example will doubtless help us all to behave in a like manner in a like case” (181). The knights recite a covenant, or a code of chivalry, when the Round Table is established. The “covenant of their Knighthood” includes being “gentle unto the weak”; to “defend the helpless who should call upon them for aid”; and “that all women should be held unto them sacred” (179). Teaching the reader these moral guidelines is Pyle’s didactic, thematic goal for The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, and in doing so Pyle suggests a moral continuity to traditional definitions of masculinity.

While Arthur and his knights are given a variety of quests in order to demonstrate their chivalry, there is a connection between the seemingly more trivial tasks and more serious ones. Guinevere explains this connection: “For if, so be, thou does assume so small a quarrel, then how much more wouldst thou take a serious quarrel of mine upon thee? Wherefore I do accept the very joyfully for my champion” (254). Here, Pellias is willing to defend Guinevere’s beauty, but his willingness assures her that he would do much more, such as go to war, for his queen and king. Knights accepting any task, or adventure, from one in need demonstrates the chivalry that Pyle hopes to teach his readers is the honorable path. Pyle communicates these values through adventure in order to engage his reader and romanticize good citizenship.

Identity and Disguise

The Story of King Arthur and His Knights features many instances of hidden identities and disguise. At the beginning, even Arthur’s identity is hidden. Ector, his adoptive father, says, “Nor have I until now ever known aught of who was thy father” (30). However, Merlin devised the magical trial of the sword in the stone as a means to reveal Arthur’s biological father. After Arthur pulls out the sword in front of everyone, Merlin says, “he who stands before thee clad in red is the true son of Uther-Pendragon” (39). Hiding Arthur’s identity keeps him safe from his father’s rivals, and also allows the people to see him as worthy from completing a trial before knowing his royal bloodline. Throughout the book, similar instances of concealed identity allow the reader and characters to focus on a person’s actions, rather than their history or social rank.

During Arthur’s courtship of Guinevere, Merlin once again hides Arthur’s identity. However, this time, Merlin uses a disguise: “a little cap” which causes Arthur to look like “a rude and rustic fellow from the countryside” (103-04). This causes Arthur to appear to be from an entirely different social class as well as a different person, allowing him to get closer to Guinevere and learn her character without her knowledge of his romantic interest. In this instance, disguise allows Arthur to learn about and woo his future queen without the political complications of his kingship.

Another head covering, a helmet, also functions to hide the identity of Arthur, as well as other knights. Unlike the cap, only a certain social class is permitted to wear armor—this is indicated by the honorific “Sir” that appears before the name of all the knights in the novel. When wearing armor borrowed from the merchant Ralph, Arthur is able to hide his identity: “Arthur closed his helmet so that the two young knights might not know who he was” (130). In another example, the identities of both Arthur and his comrade-in-arms are hidden by helmets. Due to the machinations of Morgana, Arthur wears the armor of Domas, his fellow knight Accalon wears the armor of Ontzlake, and “the head of each was covered by his helmet so that neither of those two knew the other” (236). The heavy metal protection for jousting and sword-fighting frequently obscures identity in Pyle’s novel, and is a staple in the genre of Arthurian, or chivalric, romance. In contrast to concealed identity revealing a person’s true nature, Arthur and Accalon’s disguises prevent them from acknowledging each other as allies, not enemies. In this way, Pyle draws a distinction between the intentional and imposed concealment of identity, suggesting that readers cannot make assumptions about others based on looks or first impressions.

Meanwhile, women in Pyle’s novel do not so easily conceal their identities. They are unable to use disguises that are not magical, unlike the many knights seeking adventure in armor. When Morgana steals Excalibur’s sheath, Arthur’s attendants tell him, “Queen Morgana le Fay had been here and went her way without waking you” (244). In a different adventure, Sir Ablamor offers a description of a woman who gifted white animals with golden collars that cause conflict. Gawaine replies, “from this description methinks that lady could have been none other than the sorceress Vivien” (358). Because these women either fail or decline to conceal themselves even as they perform evil deeds, Pyle suggests again that actions determine a person’s character more than appearance or names.

Green Space Versus Courtly Space

The duality of green (undeveloped) spaces and courtly (urban) spaces is explored in many traditional chivalric romances. The green spaces, usually in forests, are places where knights seek and find adventure, while the courtly space is one of love affairs and interpersonal conflicts. For example, when Guinevere banishes Gawaine from Camelot, he goes into the “forest lands” (297). When addressing an abbot who lives far from the castle, Gawaine “told him naught concerning that quarrel at Court, but only that they were in search of adventure” (298). This demonstrates the different social valences of the two environments: the court is the space where Gawaine quarrels with Guinevere, and where social conflicts take place; the forest is a more mystical and wild environment, where duels between knights serve as a practical exploration of chivalric values.

Another important comparison is that the gardens in courtly spaces are carefully manicured by people, while the green space of the forests is defined by wild nature. Arthur’s courtship of Guinevere occurs in the enclosed space of “the privy gardens of a lady” (109), in contrast to his getting lost in the “mazes of the woodland” where nature is “dark and obscure, with the woodland full of strange and usual sounds” (362). Courtly spaces are a private sphere, defended with castle walls. Green spaces are immense and labyrinthine. Forests are also a public sphere, where a king can encounter a person of any class, or even a fay. This distinction is consistent with medieval fears of the dangerous of the natural world, against which they had comparatively few defenses as modern civilizations do.

Pyle frequently characterizes green spaces as scary or mysterious: There is a “gloomy and dismal woodland that lay entirely beyond the country adjacent to Cameliard” (149) and one must travel through a “dark and dismal forest” to reach the “Valley of Delight” (209). Knights also frequently enter Arroy, the “Forest of Adventure” (257, 306), seeking quests, indicating nature’s capacity for the unpredictable. Pyle portrays urban spaces as bright and full of people. For instance, on Arthur and Guinevere’s wedding day, “the stony street along which [...] Guinevere must come to the royal castle [...] was in many places spread with carpets of excellent pattern [...] all the houses along the way were hung with fine hangings of woven texture interwoven with threads of azure and crimson” (171). The urban space features layers of artistic human creations like carpets and tapestries layered on top of the human-made streets and houses. In urban settings, the wild natural world is covered, or tamed, with the handicrafts of people. Pyle indicates that while urban space is desirable and civilized, adventure—and therefore character growth—takes places in the wild and natural settings.