Medieval Drama and Courtly Romance in William Morris' "Sir Galahad, A Christmas Mystery"

Writing of William Morris' use of medieval sources, David Staines observes that the four poems in The Defence of Guenevere volume based on Malory--"The Defence of Guenevere," "King Arthur's Tomb," "Sir Galahad, A Christmas Mystery," and "A Chapel in Lyoness"--give evidence of a "decreasing fidelity" to the original materials. Of "Sir Galahad, A Christmas Mystery" he asserts: "Instead of taking a particular moment in Malory and reshaping it in his own manner, as he did in the Guenevere poem, Morris now creates his own particular incident out of the many similar incidents in Malory." ¹ What is strikingly absent from Staines's account is an acknowledgment of the other medieval materials that shaped "Sir Galahad," those referenced in the poem's very title--mystery or cycle plays. ² For while the characters and some of the events in the poem derive "loosely" from Malory's romance (p. 448), the structure, the content, the emotional tenor, and the spiritual vision of the poem owe a great debt to medieval mystery plays. "Sir Galahad, A Christmas Mystery" is a particularly striking hybrid of the conventions and motifs of both courtly romance and medieval religious drama. While commentary on the poem has concentrated on its affinities with romance, a strong argument can be made for its derivation from another medieval mode of artistic creation. In fact, "Sir Galahad" and the poems that immediately precede and follow it in the Defence of Guenevere volume comprise a sort of nascent mystery cycle based on episodes in Malory. ³ By fusing romance and drama in this poem, Morris is able to create a psychologically intriguing Galahad and to express the paradoxical nature of this figure who is simultaneously of this world and too perfect for it, a spiritual visionary and a knight errant.

Morris' early familiarity with the Middle Ages and interest in romance are, of course, well documented. ⁴ As Carole Silver observes: "The many facets of romance . . . satisfied Morris's political, social, and artistic cravings" (p. xvi). Morris' poem about Galahad incorporates several of the characteristics of what W.R.J. Barron calls the "romance mode": first, a hero who is "superior to other men in degree . . . in personal qualities and to his environment by virtue of his superlative, even supernatural, abilities"; second, a series of independent episodes dealing with conventional motifs ("mysterious challenge, . . . lonely journey through hostile territory, . . . single combat against overwhelming odds or a monstrous opponent") that are loosely held together by the quest structure--the quest being always "to some extent symbolic." Finally, romance is characterized by the vision of a social ideal "inspired by a vision of what might be rather than by objective fact." ⁵

"Superlative" is a word aptly suited to describe Galahad's strength, virtue, and status in Malory; he is, after all, the knight for whom the Siege Perilous is reserved--the one fated to find the Grail. In the opening section of Morris' poem, however, this super-human being is not apparent. Instead, the speaker is an all-too-human knight who, with melted snow hanging in beads on his steel-shoes, comes to shelter on the longest night in the year. ⁶ Galahad's previous trials--the episodes of testing and trial so central to the romance quest--are only indirectly referenced: he has wrought "sorely" and "painfully" having been many nights alone with his horse, "dismal and unfriended." Past hardships are not named specifically, but the knight's isolation and the loneliness are made palpable. The opening monologue--evocative, as we shall later see, of the medieval complaint--captures a deeply human, suffering Galahad that we do not see in either Malory or Tennyson. Revelation of character and creation of mood take precedence over the narrative of romantic adventure.

The episodic nature of romance is part of the sub-structure of Morris...