Jill M. Hebert. Morgan
le Fay, Shapeshifter. Arthurian and Courtly Cultures.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
Reviewed by Misty
Schieberle (mschiebe@ku.edu)
Morgan le Fay,
Shapeshifter celebrates the ambiguity, inconsistency, and
resistance to patriarchal control in literary representations of
Morgan and Morgan-like figures. As Hebert explains in her
introduction, for her, “the term ‘shapeshifter’ is both a
denotative and a connotative term signaling Morgan’s ability to
change ‘shape,’ to evade being shaped by others, and to
manipulate the shape of others such as the knights with whom she
interacts” (5). Thus, the book’s focus also shifts, depending on
the texts under consideration. The book ambitiously surveys Morgan le
Fay’s appearances from early Latin chronicles and medieval
literature through the Early Modern, Romantic, and Victorian eras to
finally explore Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee, Marion
Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon, and selected contemporary
fiction. It will be a useful reference for students and Morgan
enthusiasts for its sheer ability to synthesize so much prior
scholarship and provide intertextual readings of a wide range of
Arthurian literature.
The project is
necessarily broad in scope to trace general similarities and common
issues, with an eye to reconsidering the binaries of “good” and
“evil,” with regard to Morgan’s character. Readers who are
searching for evidence of Morgan as a potentially positive character
who challenges patriarchy or instructs Arthur will find much material
to enliven their perspective; skeptics, however, may require more
convincing because often coverage takes precedent over textual detail
and context. Nevertheless, readers should find Hebert’s account a
useful narrative of how authors and readers of various centuries
viewed Morgan’s relationship to Arthur, her access to power and
challenges to stereotypes of women (and the discomfort she caused
many male writers), and her character itself, including the perhaps
surprising self-doubt that plagues her in more recent works.
The first chapter
examines selections from four Latin sources – Geoffrey of
Monmouth’s Vita Merlini, Etienne de Rouen’s Draco
Normannicus, and, very briefly, both De Instructione Principis
and Speculum Ecclesiae by Gerald of Wales. Hebert challenges
the scholarly consensus that Morgan is represented as a caring,
wholesome figure in these works, before the later romances
constructed her as a malicious force. She also addresses Celtic
goddess figures, primarily the Morrigan, whose ambiguity and complex
character she identifies as an influence on early Latin sources. Then
she asserts that in each Latin text, the positive descriptions of
Morgan as healer or loving sister are undermined by various possible
interpretations of certain surrounding textual elements. These
assertions often turn on interpretations of single words or phrases,
for example, when the Vita uses a Latin word (medicamen)
that might mean both antidote and poison to describe Morgan’s
“healing” (29), or when the Draco’s reference to
Arthur’s fatalia iura is taken as a link to Morgan as fay
(32). Still, such readings encourage the reader to reinvestigate the
text and reconsider the possibilities for Morgan’s character.
Chapter two treats
episodes that feature Morgan in the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate cycle
and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but it also connects
Morgan to loathly lady and fairy mistress narratives including Thomas
of Chestre’s Launfal, The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame
Ragnelle, The Wife of Bath’s Tale, and Parzival.
Given that many of these narratives occur at least partially in the
forest rather than in a courtly setting, this exploration leads to
one of Hebert’s most persuasive arguments: knights’ experiences
in the forest require them to reevaluate courtly social norms and
expand their realm of knowledge. Women and the notion of knightly
submission to women’s knowledge are central to this educational
experience, and Hebert finds parallels to Morgan in all the women who
advance a knight’s education.
The third chapter
examines Malory’s Arthur through the lens of Geoffrey de Charny’s
early fourteenth-century chivalric manuals and argues that Morgan’s
character calls attention to the imperfections that make Arthur an
unworthy king (70). Ambitiously, Hebert reads Morgan as “Arthur’s
backbone” and as a political counselor who tries to force her
brother to deal with private issues such as Lancelot and Guinevere’s
affair and knights’ disloyalty (72). To do so, Hebert must gloss
the Accolon and 'poisoned mantle' episodes as instructive for Arthur
and not meant to do genuine harm, which is a difficult task, since
characters’ intents are elusive in Malory. Hebert attributes
Morgan’s failure as such a counselor to Arthur’s willful
ignorance and repression of her lessons, not to the fact that her
attempts are manifested through oblique tests that men can dismiss
all too easily as trivial or malicious, rather than through direct
speech or counsel. Yet the notion that Malory means to critique the
court or chivalric values through Morgan is ultimately
persuasive, as is the reading of Excalibur’s scabbard (Latin:
vagina) as representing the court’s underestimation of
women’s potential to help or harm the court.
Chapter four explores
the widest range of material yet, some of which only feature echoes
of Morgan, constituting what Hebert calls “presence-in-absence”:
Spenser’s Faerie Queene (1590s); Keats’ “La Belle Dame
Sans Merci” (1884); Pre-Raphaelite art; literary works by minor
authors Benedict Naubert (1826), Mrs. T. K. Hervey (1863), Diana
Craik (1853), and Madison J. Cawein (1889); the folk ballad “Thomas
the Rhymer” (1802); and Tennyson’s Idylls of the King
(1859-1885). Although Morgan does not appear in the Faerie Queene,
Hebert argues that Spenser, indebted to Malory, distributes Morgan’s
abilities across the negative characters Argante, Acrasia, Duessa,
and Malecasta. Hebert then shifts to the Romantic and Victorian eras,
considering social views of the fallen woman and the Angel of the
House archetype. In this light, a Morgan character proves problematic
for the various writers who attempt to reduce her complexity and
impose restrictions on her. Hebert’s reading of Tennyson’s Vivien
as an ignored advisor recalls her reading of Malory’s Morgan and
suggests that Vivien fails because she is a woman and not trusted by
men. This is at least partially true, but, of course, Tennyson also
shows Vivien openly lying and manipulating the truth (as in her two
different versions of her parents’ deaths), indicating that her
gender may not be the only problem with her character. The chapter is
especially noteworthy for its treatment of the less canonical
writers, such as Hervey, whose Guenevere impressively defends Morgan
against men’s misrepresentations in a show of women’s solidarity,
and Craik, who offers a more conservative defense, while more
familiar or traditional depictions provide a broader literary
context.
The final chapter
addresses Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee (1889), Marion
Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon (1982), J. Robert King’s
Le Morte d’Avalon (2003), and Nancy Springer’s young adult
novel I Am Morgan le Fay (2001), with a general focus on
feminine power. For Hebert, Twain’s Hank Morgan and Morgan le Fay
share similar values, but she is also someone he must displace as he
gains power. Analysis of Bradley’s Mists complicates the
notion of power due to the “overlapping power structures of
masculine, Christian, and Celtic priestess society” (12), and
Hebert convincingly challenges the notion of Mists as a
feminist revision. Rather, she demonstrates how that view is
undermined by the many moments of doubt and insecurity Morgan
experiences that lead to destruction instead of success. The two more
recent novels, though for different audiences, equally show a Morgan
filled with self-doubt whose rebellion causes only destruction, which
prompts Hebert to rightfully express concern that the still-dominant
message delivered is that a talented woman’s challenges to
patriarchy can result only in personal and social tragedy.
As this book
illustrates, Morgan’s character is complex, elusive, and
ever-shifting, and Hebert achieves a monumental task in bringing
together such a variety of sources. One of the book’s impressive
features is Hebert’s widespread reading in both Arthurian
literature, including Welsh, French, and German texts that she
references in addition to her main texts, and scholarship. She cites
a wide array of sources, including folklore studies, feminist
readings, historical analyses, art history, and academic and trade
books from early 1900s to present publications, even unpublished
dissertations and B.A. theses. Hebert clearly challenges some
consensus views, but the impulse to cover so many texts frequently
leaves little room for extensive analysis. As a result, Hebert’s
survey is often insightful but sometimes uneven. For instance, she
elides the many variations among the English 'loathly lady' tales,
without considering whether the lady has control over her own
shapeshifting (as in Chaucer) or not (as occurs more typically),
which would complicate the questions regarding both female power and
whether the fay analogue in the story is the loathly lady or the
stepmother who enchanted her. Hebert thus opens suggestive avenues
for interpretation, but the number and variety of texts covered
prevents her from fully engaging more developed intertextual
readings.
Even though at times I
found myself desiring more details, Morgan le Fay, Shapeshifter
regularly inspired me to want to turn to the texts or delve into the
issues and questions Hebert raises. I have no doubt that the book
will spark further investigations into the character of Morgan and
her changing status during various eras of Arthurian literature.
Misty Schieberle
University of Kansas
