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‘Here lies Arthur, king once, king to be.’ The character of Sir Thomas Malory’s King Arthur through the prism of the Heroic Leadership Dynamic



This essay is based on a paper presented at the Late Antique and Medieval Postgraduates Society (LAMPS) of the University of Edunburgh annual conference in 2020. I have this version slightly expanded in order to carefully cover all of the points and leave less questions unattended. Also I have added a bibliography of basic materials used and mentioned in the essay, that can be used to familiarise yourself with the topic.
            I would like to thank LAMPS commitee members for orginising such a conference that went flawlessly, and my teachers at the University of Edinburgh for their guidance and support: my superviser Dr David Salter and my programme director Dr Finn Sinclair.


What makes the topic of this paper rather unconventional is its inter-disciplinary nature that can seem to be quite demanding. The truth is it is impossible to participate in a modern discussion of such concepts as the definition, representation, and functions of heroism, of hero’s identity and features, of heroic and leadership behaviour, without solid knowledge of the most recent accomplishments of heroism science, a discipline that encapsulates research instruments and approaches from positive psychology, moral philosophy, and other disciplines, focusing on the nature of heroism. This essay will first briefly cover the contemporary definition of a hero and heroic behaviour, then will take a look at the Heroic Leadership Dynamic — one of the most well-formed concepts within the field, and use it to evaluate the image of King Arthur in Le Morte Darthur to figure out how its perception may be changed as a result, and which functions heroism embodied in it performs.
           
It may come as a surprise that only since not so long ago the phenomenon of heroism finally started getting attention from science and academia, first of all — from scholars of psychology. The first glimpses of interest can be traced back to a book written by Joseph Campbell, published in 1949: The Hero with a Thousand Facesw. It was dedicated to mythical tropes that go along with heroes of folk and classical tales , and to their psychological interpretation, covering the function of myth and its social impact as well. Campbell only scratched the surface of nature of heroism, mainly working with the transformation of a hero along the literary journey. 58 years later, in 2007 with the publication of an article called The banality of heroism scholars started treating heroism science as a fully valid discipline, and only nine years later, with the publication of a book Handbook of Heroism and Heroic Leadership they started to actively work on independent research projects dedicated to the modern way of thinking about heroism. Another almost equally important work was published in 2014, with the title Conceptions of Leadership: Enduring Ideas and Emerging Insights; the Heroic Leadership Dynamic framework I am using to analyse the images of heroes of Late Medieval Arthurian literature was first introduced there in chapter “Now He Belongs to the Ages”: The Heroic Leadership Dynamic and Deep Narratives of Greatness.
           
Several key concepts were introduced since 2006, which unveil the true nature of the phenomenon people call heroism. I am going to briefly cover them here, since it is important to grasp the definition of terms ‘hero’ and ‘heroism’ exactly as they are specified by heroism science.

  • Heroism is a universal attribute of human nature; it’s not an artificially made social construct — as, for example, chivalry code, even thought types of culture and moral values can have certain impact at how people perceive and assess particular heroic deeds. Ability to act heroically is also not a special talent, accessible only to a limited amount of people, but rather a choice, a decision that any of us can make at a certain point in time (Franko & Zimbardo 2007).

  • There should be ways to help or to teach people act heroically, or to improve chances that they would decide to act heroically when required; the study of those is one of the main current problems heroism science is working on. 

  • For an action to qualify as heroic at least four criteria should be met: it should be voluntary, it should involve risk or potential sacrifice, it should be conducted in service to others, or at least not out of entirely egotistic motives, and in most cases should not have anticipated personal gain (Zimbardo 2007w). 

  • The essence of heroism is tied up to an individual’s commitment to a noble purpose and willingness to accept the consequences of fighting for that purpose. It should also be stated that unlike the old understanding of a term hero — when a warrior hero instantly comes to mind, heroism is not necessarily martial — there are peaceful heroes as well.  

  • Heroic actions are often initially controversial, heroes and their actions can be and in most cases they are morally ambiguous and certainly do not satisfy the needs of everyone.

  • Heroes — and stories about heroes — serve fundamental human needs, providing three important psychological, social, and physical functions: enhancing and uplifting others, modeling morals, values and ethics, and protecting the physical and psychological well-being of others.

  • Humanity needs a thriving heroism science. According to Dr Philip Zimbardo, “Knowledge about the role of heroes, heroism and heroic influence (both real life and in literature) has the potential to contribute to a range of human and societal challenges” (Kinsella 2019).

Which leads us to the figure of Arthur. No one is going to argue that King Arthur is a hero, even a national hero, in a traditional, common sense of the word — he was portrayed as one, and people perceive him as one. In my dissertation work I am going to show exactly how Arthur fits the modern standards of heroism, but for the sake of this particular essay it would be sufficient to give credit to the audience’s opinion and rather look at how Arthur’s image can be reinvented through the prism of modern heroism science, how our understanding of his character and of its significance for literature, for art, also a social and political significance, can be reinterpreted and analysed.

Heroic Leadership Dynamic (HLD) framework was created exactly to help us determine the functions heroes and heroic images can serve — the way they can influence bystanders — or audience, and also to confirm that what we are looking at is an example of heroism. It was first introduced by Dr. Scott T. Allison and Dr. George R. Goethals in a pursue of creating a model that would help “to describe the ways in which heroes and hero stories nourish the human mind and spirit” (Goethals 2014). The HLD points to psychological processes behind the motivation to create heroes and to imitate their to behaviour. At its core is the idea that “hero narratives fulfill important cognitive and emotional needs, such as our need for wisdom, meaning, hope, inspiration, and growth” (Allison 2015). According to the HLD, hero stories fullfill two main human functions, an epictemic and an energising one, and in this essay I will explain their nature using the example of King Arthur as portrayed by Sir Thomas Malory. For the reasons of space I cannot focus on each of the components of HLD here, and also I will skip, for now, the dynamic part of Heroic Leadership Dynamic, that refers to the way psychology and perception of heroism shifts over time and depending on the particular situation. 

Epistemic Function of Heroes

Epistemic function, in other words, corresponds to developing understanding of life’s complex and often counter-intuitive truths and paradoxes. Hero stories are not merely explaining them or providing models of behaviours, but feature “instances of transrational phenomena”, which is defined as experiences which resist or defy rational analysis (Allison 2015). The stories about heroic deeds reveal truths and life patterns that our minds have trouble understanding using our best logic or rational thought. Among such truths are suffering, sacrifice, love, paradox, mystery, God, and eternity. The eternal battle between good and evil is a great indicative example of a transrational phemonenon. Such phenomena can usually be too elusive for understanding using conventional tools of human reason, and hero stories help to uncover its deep meaning and to promote wisdom. According to the HLD, there are three ways they are doing it: by (1) revealing deep truths, (b) illuminating paradox, and (c) developing emotional intelligence. I am going to illustrate points (a) and (c) here.

The story of King Arthur reveals deep truths.
This concept was first presented by Joseph Campbell more than half century ago, and points out that hero stories contain deep psychological truths about fundamental human nature and motivation that are very often disguised within metaphorical symbols. There are several ways to reveal these deep truths, and to point to the wisdom of heroism behind the surface. We’ll mention two of them: deep time and sacrifice.
In order to emphasize the universal wisdom and the meaning of a certain heroic tale the author may use the effect of Deep time to connect the story with past, present and future. We usually see this in fairy tales, that start with ‘once upon a time’ or ‘long ago’ and end with ‘they lived happily ever after’. Indicative example of this in Le Morte Darthur is the epitaph written upon King Arthur’s tomb, that says ‘Here lies Arthur, king once, king to be’, and places King Arthur in both past and future narratives, connected to the present. “By invoking deep time, heroic narratives reinforce enduring values and ageless truths about human existence” (Allison 2015). Sacrifice is another deep truth: hero stories help us to see that no personal growth and no development of any type is possible without sacrifice. Odysseus, to continue his second journey, had to sacrifice a ram, a bull, and a boar to Neptune. King Arthur, in order to start the tale of the Round Table, sacrificed his personal happiness: in ‘The Wedding of King Arthur’ we read how Merlin warns Arthur that ‘Lancelot would love his wife, and she him’, but Arthur, knowing well that without Guinevere he wouldn’t get the Round Table and a hundred knights, nevertheless, willfully agrees to proceed with the marriage (Malory 1998).

The story of King Arthur develops emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence refers to a person’s ability to recognise, manage and control their own emotions, and also influence the emotions of others to a certain degree. A lot of hero stories train our ability to understand and process complex emotions by putting heroes into dark and usually rather distressing sutuations. King Arthur almost always finds himself in double-natured situations, when there is no morally acceptable way of behaviour, and any decision would lead to negative consequences. The first example that comes to mind might be his decision to comply with Gawain’s will and to have a war with Lancelot, but there are examples of such situations much earlier: in the story about Balin and Balan it is King Arthur who witnesses Balin beheading the Lady of the Lake who was under his safe-conduct, and then has to make a decision about Balin’s fate — which was not easy since Balin actually had the righteous motive to act in the way he did.

Energising Function of Heroes

Energising function of heroes points to their ability not just to emotionally move the audience, but also to inspire and to evoke moral elevation, that motivates people to act according to better moral standarts, to believe that they are capable of socially significant acts, and to feel urge to do so. There are at least three ways in which hero stories perform energising function: they (1) inspire, (2) heal psychic wounds and (3) promote personal growth. Here I am going to cover the first two of them. 

The story of King Arthur inspires us
According to research conducted by professors Allison and Goethals in 2015, there are eight main trait categories of heroes, and inspirational is one of them; moreover, it is considered one of the most important ones — because it distinguishes heroes from for example leaders, who are not necessarily heroes, or altruists (Allison 2014). A hero becomes inspirational when facing extraordinary challenges (and here we can recall the tale of King Arthur making war against the Emperor of Rome), when being charismatic — a quality thatthe French version of Arthur does not necessarily posses, but certainly it is there in Malory’s one, and when fighting and receiving wounds for the sacred cause with the help of the divine or supernatural, which is again certainly the case in all of the fights Arthur was directly involved into — unlike both his most praised knights, Gawain and Lancelot, who had their share of harmful and self-serving encounters and conflicts. As for the element of the supernatural, the help of Lady of the Lake can be cited as an example, who gifted Arthur with Excalibur; the good will of Lady Fortune can also be the case, which Arthur was deprived of in the end of the story, that led him, following the examples of many tragic heroes from classical tradition, to the tragic end. I am not going to deviate from Arthur’s examples here, but it is worth noting that among all of the knights of the Round Table Gawain would be the best heroic example, and one can remember his duel with Lancelot, when his “might increased those three hours as much as thrice his strength” (Malory 1998). 

The story of King Arthur heals psychic wounds
This is a two-component function. First, it is worth mentioning that storytelling itself is a community-building activity, and thus has the power of strengthening emotional well-being. Also, the content of hero stories usually promotes a sense of social identity, especially when a hero’s mission is to stand behind certain ideals and values which are fundamental to a community he or she belongs to or has created. In this sense the image of Arthur is extremely curious: a lot of scholars point to King’s inactivity in most of the stories, especially in the French narrative, stating that in most cases it is knights who go to quests and do the fighting, and not the King. However, if we look at the character of Arthur through the Heroic Leadership Dynamic model, we see that even when he stays on the background, his role is still active: it is King Arthur who symbolises the Round Table’s ideals, it is he who is connecting the knights and who gives their adventures purpose, and it is with his death the last quest is fullfilled. Reading or retelling these stories can be compared to a group therapy with such benefits as lessening the anxiety level, instilling hope, development of socialisation skills, the relief of stress and others. This function is possible specifically because of King Arthur’s image, not because of his knights.

***
The ways Heroic Leadership Dynamic can be used to study heroic, and, first of all, Arthur’s, images in Arthurian literature is a subject for a much more serious research than this essay can encompass; my dissertation project is titled The function of hero and heroism in Late Medieval Arthurian Literature (the primary texts I am working with are: Stanzaic Morte Arthur, Alliterative Morte Arthure, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and to a lesser degree Le Morte Darthur) is going to shed more light on it, and I also hope to be able to start my PhD studies in October 2020 that will be dedicated to heroism in Sir Thomas Malory’s  Le Morte Darthur. However, I hope that this brief introduction into how HLD can be used to analyse King Arthur’s heroism serves an appropriate introduction of a new set of instruments that can truly help literature and history scholars to study heroic characters and their functions. Of course to make such a research more established and thorough the question of context should also be studied: in the particular case with the image of King Arthur in Malory’s work it can play a huge role, since the time Malory was writing his work was the time of a major social and political crisis, during which the impact of heroism stories grew significantly stronger, and audience response — much more obvious. I am planning to continue working with this topic, and, hopefully, will be able to share more research and thoughts on it soon. 


“If we lose the ability to imagine ourselves as heroes, and to understand the meaning of true heroism, our society will be poorer for it. But if we can reconnect with these ancient ideals, and make them fresh again, we can create a connection with the hero in ourselves.”
              ~Franco & Zimbardo, 2007



Bibliography


  1. Allison, Scott T., and George R. Goethals. Heroes: What They Do and Why We Need Them. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
  2. Allison, Scott T., and George R. Goethals. “Hero Worship: The Elevation of the Human Spirit.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 46, no. 2 (2015): 187–210.
  3. Allison, Scott T. Handbook of Heroism and Heroic Leadership. Routledge, 2016.
  4. Cartlidge, Neil. Heroes and Anti-Heroes in Medieval Romance. D. S. Brewer, 2018.
  5. Franco, Zeno, Blau, Zimbardo. Heroism: A Conceptual Analysis and Differentiation Between Heroic Action and Altruism. Review of General Psychology. 15(2011):99-113. 
  6. Franco, Zeno E., Scott T. Allison, Elaine L. Kinsella, Ari Kohen, Matt Langdon, and Philip G. Zimbardo. “Heroism Research: A Review of Theories, Methods, Challenges, and Trends.” Journal of Humanistic Psychology 58, no. 4 (July 2018): 382–96.
  7. Franco, Zeno, Zimbardo, Phil. The banality of heroism. Greater Good. 3. 30-35. (2007).
  8. Goethals, George R. Conceptions of Leadership Enduring Ideas and Emerging Insights. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
  9. Jayawickreme, Eranda, and Paul Di Stefano. “How Can We Study Heroism? Integrating Persons, Situations and Communities.” Political Psychology 33, no. 1 (2012): 165–78.
  10. Kinsella, Elaine L et al. “Zeroing in on heroes: a prototype analysis of hero features.” Journal of personality and social psychology vol. 108,1 (2015): 114-27.
  11. Kinsella, E. L., Igou, E. R., & Ritchie, T. D. “Heroism and the Pursuit of a Meaningful Life.” Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 59(4), (2019): 474–498.
  12. Malory, Thomas. Le Morte Darthur. Winchester Manuscript. Ed. and Abr. by Helen Cooper. Oxford Press, 1998.
  13. Zimbardo, Philip G. The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil. London: Random House, 2007.