There's a great deal more to Geoffrey of Monmouth's History than you were given to read. It begins with the supposed origin of the Britons (i.e. the Welsh who had been driven to the periphery of Britain after the successive invasions of Anglo-Saxons), through the exploits of Arthur (which you read), and the fall of Britain to the Saxons, up to the time of the Norman invasion. In Geoffrey's version of history, the Norman conquerors are treated as ethnically and culturally allied with the long-suffering Britons. But more importantly, Geoffrey invents a pre-history of the Britons that allies them with the greatest story of antiquity, and makes them past conquerors of an empire that was, for a time, even greater than Rome.
Brutus comes to Albion
Brutus, grandson of Aeneas, kills his own father accidentally by an unlucky shot with an arrow - he is exiled from Italy. After many travels reminiscent of Aeneid 1-5, he gains allies in Greece and accomplishes a re-conquest of Greece, but leaves after being directed to Britain by an oracle of Diana.
"Brutus, beyond the setting of the sun, past the realms of Gaul, there lies an island in the sea, once occupied by giants. Now it is empty and ready for your folk. Down the years this will prove an abode suited to you and your people; and your descendants it will be a second Troy. A race of kings will be born there from your stock and round circle of the whole earth will be subject to them" (65).
"Brutus called the island Britain after his own name, and his companions he called Britons. . . A little later the language of the people, which had up to then been known as Trojan or crooked Greek, was called British for the same reason" (72).
MacDougal:
"Geoffrey's motivation . . . was a desire to provide an heroic epic on the origins and exploits of a people subdued successively by Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans. By portraying the British as a once great people with extensive domains he could a t once raise their status is the eyes of their new Norman overlords and suggest a precedent to the new Norman kings in their imperialistic ambitions" (1).
How do we read Arthur's heroic exploits and final defeat at the hands of his (incestuous) nephew? If Geoffrey's tale of Arthur becomes a kind of prose epic, does it matter than his hero is ultimately defeated? Or is "defeat" the right way to characterize this tale? Given Geoffrey's rather explicit desire to please his Norman patrons, how does the identification of the Britons and Arthur with Armorica (northern France) play into our reading of this text?
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