Ophelia and Arthurian legends: Broken Oaths, Suicides, Ghostly Fathers (Ophelia postlude)

In Thomas Malory's collected Le Morte D'Arthur tales, the Lady of the Lake, an unnamed damsel, and two figures named Elaine resemble various dynamics in Hamlet and Ophelia. This is not to say that Hamlet alludes to Malory (he never does explicitly), but that knowledge of the tales was one among many aspects of the cultural-literary fabric that informed the shaping of Hamlet as distinct from its older sources.

1. Ophelia’s Valentine song in 4.5 implies Hamlet had broken his oaths to her, in spite of her having broken off the relationship first in obedience to her father.
- The Lady of the Lake [1] acts as if an oath had been broken or a debt unpaid related to the sword, but she is killed.

2. An unnamed damsel falls in love with Lanceor (not Lancelot) but she is in such sorrow at his death that she kills herself, falling on a sword.[2]

3. Lancelot is deceived by sorceress Brisen who disguises Elaine, daughter of King Pelles, to appear as Guinevere. Elaine seduces Lancelot (similar to Helena's bed-trick in All's Well that Ends Well), and conceives a child by Lancelot who will be Sir Galahad, who will help to find the Holy Grail.[3]
- Hamlet feels deceived by Ophelia when she returns his love letters and acts as bait for spying; many have speculated that she may be pregnant.

4. Lancelot meets Elaine of Astolat, who falls in love with him. He disguises himself as her brother and wins a tournament, but is wounded. She wants him to be her husband, but he cannot. [4] She is so grief-stricken that she thinks she will die; her "ghostly father" tells her not to think it (like the ghost telling Hamlet, "taint not  thy mind").
She dies, and her corpse is floated down the river on a barge to Camelot.
(Ophelia drowns in a brook....)

"...Elaine of Astolat resembles [...] Shakespeare's Ophelia.”[5]

In Tennyson, Elaine of Astolat becomes "The Lady of Shalott."

See also Michael L. Hayes: “Le Morte D’Arthur as tragic romance setting courtly love and chivalric conduct in conflict, and both against Christian conduct.” (Similar to tensions with genres and Christianity in Hamlet [6].)  


NOTES:

[1] Book 2, chapters I-III.

[2] Book 2, chapters IV-VI.

[3] Book 11, chapters ii and VIII. This idea of Lancelot being in love with Guinevere, outside the bounds of marriage, and having Elaine conceive a son by him (also outside the bounds of marriage) also resembles a key theme of Hamlet, prince in a Christian nation where murder is illegal as well as biblically condemned, breaking the law to kill his father's murder and prevent Denmark from coming to further harm. Some things transcend the law and may be justified for transcendent reasons.

[4] Book 18. chapter XIX

[5] "...Elaine of Astolat resembles one of most famous maidens in English literature, Shakespeare's Ophelia. Frappi noticed this resemblance and called the Demoiselle d'Escalot 'l'Ophélie du roman arthurien.' There is no equivalent of Ophelia in the French literary tradition.”
See GREENE, VIRGINIE. “How the Demoiselle d’Escalot Became a Picture.” Arthuriana 12, no. 3 (2002): 31–48. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27870446.

[6] https://voegelinview.com/romancing-sources-framing-tales-hamlet-king-lear/
From Fn 17:
"Most college students, including English majors and graduate students, read few, if any, romances.  If they do, they read one or two works assigned in survey courses or put on reading lists; included for their aesthetic merit, not popular appeal; and ordered by their date of composition.  Such formats tacitly assume that Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, his romances in The Canterbury Tales, and the West Midland poet’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight typify romance.  Such formats may include Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur — if they do, students usually read only short selections — and omit — so few ever learn about — King Horn, Guy of Warwick, or Bevis of Hampton.  No one differentiates them, the former three as romances of baronial and royal courts, with their emphasis on courtly love; the latter three as romances of town squares and village taverns as well, with their emphasis on chivalric action; and Le Morte D’Arthur as tragic romance setting courtly love and chivalric conduct in conflict, and both against Christian conduct.  So a preference for emotion and aesthetics, not action and ethics, guides curriculum choices.  The two biases together dispense with the kind of romances — namely, chivalric romances — which Sidney commended, not for poesy, but for pertinence to public affairs, about the time when Shakespeare left Stratford for the stage."

IMAGES:
Left: Edward Robert Hughes (1851–1914), “The Lady of Shalott” (circa 1888-1905). Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut. Public Domain, via https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/The_Lady_of_Shalott_by_William_Holman_Hunt%2C_c._1890-1905%2C_oil_on_canvas_-_Wadsworth_Atheneum_-_Hartford%2C_CT_-_DSC05541.jpg

Right: John William Waterhouse (1849–1917), “The Lady of Shalott,” 1888. Tate Britain. Public domain via https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/John_William_Waterhouse_-_The_Lady_of_Shalott_-_Google_Art_Project_edit.jpg



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