Britannie"
Author(s): MICHELLE R. WARREN
Source: Arthuriana, Vol. 8, No. 4, THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH
(WINTER 1998), pp. 115-134
Published by: Scriptorium Press
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Postcolonial
Contact:
Making
MICHELLE
The HRB
presents
between
linguistic,
an ambivalent
powers
unequal
and erotic desire.
establish
encounters
fantasy, wherein
domination
through topographic,
colonial
(MRW)
as
'postcolonial studies
interpretive methods known collectively
to zssess the
out
of
of
efforts
enduring repercussions
developed
The
studies have
Subsequently, postcolonial
nineteenth-century colonialisms.
embraced colonialisms back to the sixteenth century, but continue to draw a
boundary limit this side of theMiddle Ages. The maintenance of this boundary,
can
travel.
Ifmedieval
defining postcolonial
to postcolonial
to anxieties about
ARTHURIANA
115
8.4(1998)
u6
ARTHURIANA
and Hodge
offer lucid critiques of the
disciplinary boundaries. Mishra
as does
controversies surrounding themeaning
colonial,
ofpost(-)
Appiah. These
critics, and a host of others, emphasize that postcolonial perspectives cannot
a
be consolidated into a single, unified gaze; instead,
they set kaleidoscope of
contentious fragments inmotion. Inmost cases, however, the
fragments share
anxieties about coercive cultural encounters;
their motions deconstruct
Boundaries
of all kinds mark radical differences along the lines ofmost intimate
contact. By
on the limits of difference and resemblance,
focusing
postcolonial
studies situate paradox, ambivalence,
and irony in relation to cultural
and colonial
audience
Britons
Geoffrey
claims
to his Norman
the Britons' conquest ofArmorica, and the Saxons' conquest of Britannia (to
a
encounter establishes domination
identify only few). Each
through spatial,
and
erotic
each encounter reconfigures the results of strategic
desire;
linguistic,
resemblance. The variable consequences of coercive contact demonstrate that
no
single model
can
POSTCOLONIAL
PERSPECTIVES
"7
theories of
HRB, while inGeoffreys time its castle had been held alternately by Breton
and Norman
conquerors
(Courtney 307?09). The textual references and
charters that corroborate Geoffreys claim to place (Tatlock 68-77, 44?) thus
tie him to a site of international contacts.
and being?'the
overlap and displacement of domains of difference' (2)?
crosses contradictory limits.The in-between subject splits between
perpetually
here and there, between j^and
other. Likewise, forMary Louise Pratt, the
zones where powers and cultures
are
encounters
colonial
of
spaces
decentering
form in contact
ii8
ARTHURIANA
1129 and 1151 (Salter), probably as a secular canon at the college of St. George
(Lloyd 464). Geoffreys epithet from the periphery thus penetrates the center,
demonstrating that border identitymatters most urgently in them?tropole.
was
Geoffreys colonial itinerary does not end inOxford, however, since he
to
in
elected
theWelsh
1151.Modern
bishopric of St. Asaph's
catalogues
maintain Geoffreys
topographic
was consecrated as
never traveled to northeastern Wales
Geoffrey
bishop, he
to occupy his seat because theWelsh
access to the
prevented
region (Lloyd
The
literal impossibility of Geoffrey's arrival at the scene of
460-66).
colonization
between
of a new
desire of
boundary
intimate yet antagonistic dynamics of colonial
powers. The
metropolitan
contact arrest
in
the
border: every aspect of colonial identity remains
identity
transient, although no one really leaves them?tropole. Suspended inOxford,
Geoffrey's colonial
episcopacy.
power in motion by
keeps his relationship to metropolitan
at least three different ways. Scholars have used the
the
in
HRB
dedicating
dedications to date different recensions of the text on the assumption that
Robert of Gloucester,
theymust address allies rather than antagonists?and
Waleran ofMeulan, and Stephen of Blois spentmost of the 1130s and 1140s in
Geoffrey
open hostilities. Scholars have also argued that the dedications, in conjunction
with the presumed propagandistic value of theHRB,
represent Geoffrey's
allegiances to themonarchy. However, taken as a group of statements conceived
over time
by Geoffrey himself (asNeil Wright shows they probably were [xii
xvi]), the dedications witness a subtle negotiation of multiplicity
supports and resists superior powers. At different moments,
that both
Geoffrey
three
different
relations
between
his text,
himself,
rulers,
improvised
powerful
and the Briton imperial past.2 By alternately
and
claiming
disavowing his
textual authority, Geoffrey unsettles the
of
domination
used to
paradigms
Welsh
improvised alliance with theWelsh. Gillingham has shown that after the
an
claimed
the kingship ofGlamorgan, Robert
alliance
prince Morgan
forged
with theWelsh
in common cause against
Stephen (114-15). Gillingham argues
further that theHRB provides a venerable
in order to
history for theWelsh
legitimate Robert's otherwise unseemly alliance with barbarians (115-16). From
POSTCOLONIAL
PERSPECTIVES
119
a
over territorial
this perspective, the HRB
originates in military conflict
control, and proceeds to redraw historical limits in interaction with newly
rex
['illustrious king of the English'] (72;Wright xiii, col. 1). In
Anglorum'
effect,Geoffrey asks that Robert, as a semblance of his royal father (alterum
Henricum),
incorporate Geoffrey's genealogy of kings into the contemporary
twin destruction of the Severn rivervalley. The dedication makes Waleran not
a descendent of
and the
only the realm's second support, but
Charlemagne
embodiment(likeRobert)ofphilosophyjoinedtomilitaryprowess(Wright
xiii,
a
again, Geoffrey includes specific appeal to the patron's power of
to
take thework 'sub tutela tua ['under your tutelage'].
correction, askingWaleran
col. 2). Once
Geoffrey disowns the very origin of the textwhen he asks for protection under
Waleran's tree so as tomake music on the reed-pipe 'musae tue' [ofyour muse'].
toWaleran, Geoffrey
By ascribing the inspiration of theHRB
implies that the
was
civil
discord
indeed inspiredby contemporary strifeand that
Waleran
history of
is responsible formuch of it (he had not, after all, honored his oath toHenry 1 to
supportMatilda).
and Robert the opportunity to correct the
Geoffrey offers both Waleran
work (to make it different) as semblances (altera) of each other, while also
120
ARTHURIANA
accuses the
responsibility from them. He subtly
pillars of the
withholding
realm bymanipulating the logic of patron-client relationships. In their analysis
of the patronage dynamics of this dedication, Martin Shichtman and Laurie
Finke have argued that Geoffreys discursive strategy replicates Merlin's
performance in theHRB itself: 'thefigure of a powerful, yetmarginal, outsider
who allows himself to become the client of great men without ceding any of
his own power' (29). They argue further that, by addressing the text to rivals,
Geoffrey seeks to profit from their competition; the great inequalities between
rearranges the names in the text, it rearranges the doubleness of the patron-client
relation. The configuration of multiple responsibilities for theHRB between
a
Geoffrey, Stephen, Robert, and Henry negotiates settlementof differencesbetween
and
rivals
and
between
present. In a sense,Geoffrey authors
political
empires past
when Stephen
(and authorizes) the reconciliation thathe eventuallywitnessed in 1153
as his heir (Lloyd 465-66).
recognized Henry's grandson
POSTCOLONIAL
PERSPECTIVES
121
Postcolonial
politics
postcolonial
as defined
perspectives,
center.
Through
through the logic of the
the effect of impartiality emerges from multiple
partisanships.
In all of these ethnic and political relations, language actively shapes and
as much as a means
reflects the colonial dynamic?a
sign of power relations
like
of their communication.
Language practices,
political claims, do not
constitute
homogenous
shift attention
as it shuttles between
actively engages the boundaries of identity
differences and near-resemblances. On one side, translation can enhance power
Translation
Eric
that support domination.
reinforce the boundaries
at
and
translation
colonization
for
that
coincide:
Cheyfitz argues,
example,
the very heart of every imperial fiction.. .isa fiction of translation (15).Tejaswini
a strategy of containment in
Niranjana also shows how translation becomes
the colonial context' (36). Through this perspective, Geoffreys translation of
differences
and
Briton
librum vetustissimum'
becomes
(71;Wright 2:3-4)
language]
serves the
readers. As purported translator,
imperial fantasies of theHRB's
an
Geoffrey practices
aggressive discourse of linguistic possession, rendering
theHRB what Francis Ingledew calls 'a vast act of spatial as well as temporal
colonization
(687). Like the island itself, the story of the past is a cultural
122
ARTHURIANA
the Briton
domination
Geoffrey's translation thus makes the Britons more like his Larin-literare
readers?that is,more like everybody with an official interest inwritten history.
the Briton cultural experience, Latin breaks down the
By universalizing
discursive barrier between theBritons' past and present?the barrier that stands
between them and present cultural legitimacy. Although Geoffrey produces a
HRB
as a whole
to
remains bound
Welsh,
the past
to
originary power. Geoffrey's descriptions of translation capture the linguistic
drama lived through colonization, where translation maps shifting orders of
knowledge of the past and becomes
colonial technology.
the postcolonial
POSTCOLONIAL
PERSPECTIVES
123
has changed
Normans
of the shadow of imperialisms decayed future, erotic desire enters the colonial
dynamic. In this second descriptio, Otter has argued (74), Geoffrey signals a
ARTHURIANA
124
While
Brutus does desire the land as complacent space, the
of
that
space remains indeterminate at the origin of Britannia,
gendering
suggesting that coercive contact does not always generate heterosexual
McClinrock.
metaphors.
The
caves (90;
21: 1-7). This solution to colonial contact, as
Wright
notes
unstable.
The boundary between the ruled and
also
Otter
(82), proves
the unruly collapses violently when the giants return and kill a number of
mountain
to one when
Corineus wrestles the power of his difference from the play of his similarity
giants, demonstrating how colonizers generate domination by forcefully
the
Corineus
approaches
exacting differences from near-resemblances.
encounter 'maximo gaudio,' 'abjectis armis' ['with the greatest joy,' 'casting
to
POSTCOLONIAL
PERSPECTIVES
125
down his arms'] (91;Wright 21: 29-30). Thus with great pleasure, Corineus
divests himself of the signs of his civilized difference from giants, and prepares
to engage in intimate bodily contact with the native. The contest begins with
their locked embrace:
afflatibus aera vexant
adnectus crebris
his shoulders and carries him some distance before throwing him over a cliff:
ille, per abrupta saxorum cadens, inmille frusta proiectus dilaceratus est et
fluctus sanguine maculavit
['There, by falling onto broken rocks, he is torn
21:
a
waves with his blood'] (92;
to thousand
pieces and he stained the
Wright
37?39). The fragmentation of the indigenous body on the shore performs the
fatalmultiplicity of differences in the border; the stain of giant-blood on the
water that conveyed the
only briefly?the
colonizing settlers marks?but
At
century (Clark 148),where they looked over the shoulders of the civic architects
of imperial expansion. Today, their replicas still greet
intrepid postcolonial
tourists.
McClintocks
126
ARTHURIANA
just out
ofVespucci's visual range, Geoffrey's giants threaten the conqueror's ability to
take possession of the land. In both the image and theHRB,
the encounter
takes place at the shore, a liminal space between land and water where
the ambivalence
'boundary figures' (McClintock 26) meet those who would cross over. The
calls catastrophic boundary loss'
wrestling match performs what McClintock
in an intimate encounter that concludes with the affirmation of absolute
'boundary order' (29). Disposing of the giants body with inhuman strength,
Corineus turns his 'fantasies of unlimited power into reality.The entire episode
draws out of
stages the ambivalence of cultural conquest thatMcClintock
Van der Straet's image, but by containing the relation between twomale figures,
is able to destroy the boundary disturber on the jagged rocks of the
theHRB
boundary itself.Vespucci, by contrast, must live alongside
in perpetual fear of consumption, or abandon the land.
female cannibals
when
Paradoxically, then, colonizers lose the power of absolute difference
as
encounter
rhe coercive encounter is gendered heteroerotically. The colonial
the sexual encounter ofmen and women installs ambivalence rather than joy
relation with time; they suspend the lines of difference in ambivalence. The
encounter, by contrast, forecloses the future and eradicates
at
difference
the firstoverpowering touch. Suleri's argument that the figuration
of colonial
as rape derives from a metaphoric
avoidance
of conquest
homoerotics (17) thusmakes the encounter of man-giant and giant-man the
homoerotic
this metaphoric
scene of domination.
The HRB manifests
more
more
if
toward the
comfortable,
risky, dynamics of
displacement
son
as
shuns
Locrinus
Brutus's
heterosexual desire almost immediately,
Corineus s daughter Gwendolyn in favor of a captured foreigner (94-95;Wright
24). Tellingly, Gwendolyn eventually resolves the conflict by having the foreign
woman and her daughter drowned. This homosocial murder illustrates again
the normalization of domination though the destruction of near-resemblances.
Somewhat later, ambivalent relations with the native women shadow the
primordial
discovers a
Britons' colonization of Armorica. Across thewater, Maximianus
new
a
of the
in
the
mouth
e
second locus amo nus, and Geoffrey offers
descriptio
conqueror, addressed
to Conan:
POSTCOLONIAL
PERSPECTIVES
127
et flumina
piscosa
sunt, nemora
perpulchra,
et saltus
ubique
amoeni,
['Do not therefore grieve that the rule of the island of Britain has been ceded to me,
to possess it
when you had
hopes
lawfully yourself, because whatever you have lost there,
Iwill restore to you in this
I will promote you to the
patria, because
kingship of this
realm, and itwill be another Britain, and out of our own people, after expelling the
we will
it. For this patria
is fertile with corn, and the rivers with
indigenes,
repopulate
are very beautiful and the forests
fish; the woodlands
my judgment no land
pleasant?in
ismore
agreeable.']
From the verbal description (which casts the fertile ground as compliant,
with shades of grateful ingratior) to the dismissal of the natives, Maximianus
replicates the founding of Britannia. He takes the narrative of colonization
cum
Gallis
facerent,
commilitonibus
suis
illam
dare, ut ex
conjuges
Et ut nullam
perpetuo
possiderent.
ut ex Britannia
decrevit
insula mulieres
not
they would
commingle with any of the Gauls,
to be married
to them.]
from Britannia
he decided
that women
should
come
Conan
would
never
forget that theTrojans had killed their people (81;Wright 14: 25).
By maintaining the boundary between theBritons and the native Other, Conan
envisions a stable possession of the land. Like the caves that harbored the
giants, the endogamous marriages promise tomaintain the difference between
the Britons and the natives. Nevertheless, the threat of illicit sexual mingling
analogous
sent from
and those
(all potent
128
ARTHURIANA
as
statement of the
boundary figures). Conans
performances of their failure
imperative, then, is followed immediately by the silenced
endogamous
that
the Britons must have married Armorican women (carefully
suggestion
massacre of themen). Commixti, theArmorican Britons
the
preserved from
a
no Briton ever mentions. The invisible
embody
genealogical rupture that
encounter of Briton men and Armorican women
(257;Wright
165: 62-74).
coat, but itsmaterial?the
difference. When
Ritho
fetish,Arthur refused and theymet in battle: the victor would win the coat
and the other man's beard. Geoffrey does not
specifywhether theywrestled or
on
coat
when
but
Arthur
takes
the
made of human beards, he looks
dueled,
like the figure of the cannibal. The coat itself represents the
of
the resemblance that contaminates the difference between men
portability
and giants, and that bolsters Arthur's power to dominate the
dangerous native.
The Britons' initial encounters with the Saxons portray resemblance as a
troublingly
of space.
PERSPECTIVES
POSTCOLONIAL
129
After Vortigern refuses to give Hengist a title to go with his agricultural lands,
a
to
Hengist proposes
quantify defensive space instead:
'Concede,'
inquit, mihi,
servo
tuo, quantum
une
corrigia
possiet
ambiri
infra
the
a line on a map
uses the
Vortigern agrees, Hengist
thong like
a
vast
and
scale
the
of
encompass
territory:
manipulate
topography
Once
to
saxosum
locum,
quod
maxima
cautela
elegerat,
circuivit
cum
corrigia
et infra
nomen
ex
britannice
corrigia,
quia
Kaercarrei,
cum
saxonice
ea metatum
fuerat: dictum
vero Thaneccastre,
quod
namque
Latino
fuit postmodum
sermone Castrum
the thong a rocky place, which he selected with great care, and within the measured
itwas built, derived its name from the
space he began to build a castle, which, when
it had been measured with one: thus itwas called afterwards in the Briton
thong since
in the Saxon Thanecastre, which we call in the Latin
language Kaercarrei,
language Castle
with
oftheThong.]
Hengist,
do in theHRB.
and Hengist
(cautela), but the space itself is not defined by the shape of the rocks. Hengist
new space
literally creates
through spatial measurement
(spatium metatum).
of
land
represents a mode of colonization without an
Hengist's acquisition
aestheticized imperial gaze: instead of discovering a locus amoenus, Hengist
creates a saxosum locum (which
slyly suggests a Saxonum locum), building his
colonial headquarters on the rockymaterial that destroyed
Goemagog
(abrupta
saxorum). Geoffreys concluding trilingual naming of the fortification moves
through the translation process of conquest right into the collective present
tense of Latin dominance.
The
ARTHURIANA
130
a cup
daughter Ronwen approaches Vortigern with
100: 4-16). She toasts him in Saxon; he burns for her
more
immediarely (incaluit), just as Corineus burned (somewhat
aggresively)
for Goemagog
the instructions of his interpreter,
(aestuabat). Following
Vortigern gives the appropriate reply in Saxon; afterRonwen drinks, Vortigern
kisses her and drinks. By mimicking the Saxon custom, Vortigern dismisses
of theThong, Hengists
ofwine (178-79; Wright
his own cultural precedence, which would dictate that the new settlers follow
the custom of the indigenous king. Born of his desire for the foreign woman,
a
Vortigerns mimicry makes him
partial colonial subject, and creates
the
colonial
of
the
Saxons: although he is king, he plays
power
discursively
into domination?or
could stumble
dependence?
odds
the
almost
(5). In Geoffreys own time, military
against
unexpectedly,
and cultural struggle kept improvised identities inmotion; theHRB charts a
of empty
history of this motion. Brutus's experience of the false prophecy
land exposes themythology of colonial space, and the impossibility of a first
encounrers with giants, Corineus
and Arthur exploit
coming. In their
of Wales:
'One
PERSPECTIVES
POSTCOLONIAL
131
and Brian, and many other encounters over land, language, and lust. The
thus demonstrates didactically what Suleri has called the ghostly mobility'
of colonial facts (3).Multiple strategies form power, and the forms themselves
are unstable because they play on the shifting dynamics of resemblance and
of Insular contacts reconfigure
difference. Geoffrey's
representations
resemblances and keep differences on themove.
are in some ways unavoidable
for
Postcolonial perspectives on theHRB
studies
scholars trained by the pedagogy of post- everything: postcolonial
a bounded
se
than
rather
disciplinary field.
permeate perspective per
forming
formations in the
as
of
colonial
medieval
If,
representations
Ingham observes,
more
recent
then
Insular histories
fantasies
British Isles haunt
(27),
imperial
HRB
OF
UNIVERSITY
Michelle
R. Warren
(formerly Wright)
is assistant
professor
of French
MIAMI
at the
on
UniversityofMiami (CoralGables, FL). She has published Dante and theFrench
Arthurian
prose
cycle,
and
has
recently
completed
a book
on Arthurian
Britain
(1100-1300).
ARTHURIANA
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to Rebecca
E. Biron and Patricia Clare
Ingham for inspirational
conversation
and vigorous commentary
the
of this article; I am
preparation
during
indebted to Patricia for generously
work.
especially
sharing her unpublished
NOTES
represents
of
Geoffrey's
Historia
marked
by
a Norman
reception
(xxxv
xliii, liv-lix); David Dumville has argued further that the text probably only
circulated inNormandy. Although philologists have yet to establish an oldest
version of theHRB from theover two hundred extant
manuscripts,Michael Reeve
has argued thatEdmond Faral's edition currentlyoffersthe closest representation
of such a text.Since in thisarticle I emphasize thecultural conditions that
generated
theHistoria, Faral's textprovides themost solid basis of an argument;
Wright's
edition,
by
contrast
can best
sustain
arguments
about
the HRB's
Normanitas.
For
page
references
to Farai.
Although Briton is not generally used as an adjective, I will use it here to refer
specifically to themedieval ethnic construct and to avoid confusion with the
inclusive connotation ofBritish inmodern usage
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