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Although king of the Arthurian universe, the figure of Arthur in much of medieval literature is a remarkably simple one. Depicted first as a powerful warlord in the Welsh and Latin traditions, he becomes a passive and often weak character in Chrétien's romances, abandoning the thrill of the battlefield in favor of his throne.1 Indeed, in many early texts, he is consistently portrayed as a one-dimensional figure with little or no emotional depth. The thirteenth-century LancelotGraal cycle, however, presents us with a different Arthur, subtly and progressively revealing the man beneath the crown.2 From the Merlin to the Mart Artu, his emotions are explored and, at times, integrated into the plot to reveal the consequences for his reactions on other characters and for the Arthurian world itself.
Curiously, though, the Lancelot-Graal authors are selective in their presentation of Arthur's inner life, more so than with that of any other character. Throughout the cycle, there is a constant dichotomy between the king and the man, and Arthur is often in conflict with himself; that is, with both his public and private personas. Nonetheless, his character progresses over the course of these narratives, when he evolves from a newly crowned king to a seasoned monarch who watches his world crumble around him and who eventually falls, along with his kingdom. That evolution is accompanied by numerous psychological complexities that themselves become more labyrinthine as we follow the legend from beginning to end.3 More specifically, Arthur's emotional trials and tribulations, first made apparent in the Prose Merlin, increasingly reflect the duality of his being in the Lancelot Proper, and his dual nature is underscored even further in the Mort Artu.4 Tracing the emergence of that duality is the function of this article.
It is only in the Merlin that the dichotomy of Arthur's character is not explicitly explored,5 since he is on many counts an inexperienced young man slowly coming into his own. At this point in the cycle, the Arthurian universe is still in the beginning stages of its creation, allowing the soon-to-be-lost innocence of its namesake to shine through, for the first and perhaps only time. Yet, even here his private life is tied intricately to his public one. The initial display of his emotions is...