As Awntyrs off Arthure: do romance arturiano ao Contemptus Mundi

Abstract

The Awntyrs off Arthure are still a largely unknown poem within the Iberian Arthurian discourse, likewise much of the English texts regarding the Morte Arthure are still paid little attention to when compared with their French counterparts. Our objective with this article is not limited to the promotion of lesser known or referred Arthurian texts, but rather to exhibit how even ideals eminently exterior to what we could consider the romantic tradition managed to assimilate with it, as is the case with the Contemptus Mundi within the Awntyrs. To this end, the Awntyrs proves itself to be a most appropriate poem due to its uniqueness; showing the reader how well-versed it is in the previously existing «Death of Arthur» narratives, as well as its knowledge and use of themes from moral literature, and its unusual structure,which has been aptly compared to a “diptych” contrasting both halves of the poem. Furthermore, we seek to demonstrate that the presence of the contemptus mundi within the poem not only recontextualizes the way the second half should be read, offering a new interpretative model towards the Alliterative Death of Arthur which already demonstrates a critical attitude towards the latter part of Arthur's reign. By laying the sin of greed upon Arthur the poem not only provides a moral rationale to the development of the events, but also reconstructs the narrative through a far harsher moral scheme with the intention of political and moral intervention.