King Arthur And Merlin Essay Research Paper

King Arthur And Merlin Essay, Research Paper

Merlin is a popular character when it comes to the stories of King Arthur and

other stories dealing with the Arthurian age. In most of the stories written

about him they refer to him as the magician, kingmaker, and prophet. We also

know him as the one that takes care of Arthur from birth, who set him on the

throne, who established him there in the early days of his reign as king. While

most books agree that he knew King Arthur and watched over him from birth, what

was he really, was he a magician with a beard in a tall pointed hat and long

cloak with a magic wand that performed magic or was he a prophet that could for

see the future as portrayed in the .Crystal Cave. or was he something else.

In the .Crystal Cave. Merlin is portrayed as a prophet that can see into the

future with the help of the pattern of crystals in the cave that he discovered.

Here he is not portrayed as a magician but rather it shows us his technical

abilities, like when he moved .Hele Stone. of Stonehenge with the machine he

built, rather then raising the whole stone or causing it to fly through the air

or float across the sea. He is then portrayed as the .kingmaker. when at the

end he is given Arthur to raise and teach so he would be ready to take over the

thrown when he got older. Merlin may also be known as a lover .Last

Enchantment., when while under Arthur.s rule, Merlin retires to the

wilderness and there is attacked y a subtle poison given to him by Morgause, he

is later nursed back to health by a young girl named Ninian. After that Ninian

becomes Merlin.s pupil until in the end when his powers begin to fade and she

takes over the role of guardian of Arthur.s realm. .Merlin.s more

passionate side is also showed in a book written by James Branch Cabell. In the

book titled .Something About Eve. Merlin is summoned along with King Solomon

and Odysseus to give an account of himself before the passes .into the realms

of the otherworld. to discover the true meaning of his life, here Merlin

confesses that he was happy for a long time in his tower, until he saw his

people of the Arthurian age begin to break each other and to become filled with

hate and lust and barbarity. But even then he lingers on, happy with his child

love and peace of his tower, only now does he seek enlightenment in the

Otherworld, where he might find failure of his dream..(Stewart, 96) Merlin for

whatever reason does not cease to be concerned with this world and the people

who live in it. Merlin.s love of women, sometimes moralized into a sexual

weakness, is a reflection of his otherworldly father.s love for his mother.

This in turn relates to one of the most ancient mythical themes, and like all

Merlinic lore is intimately concerned with both environment and the spiritual

intimations found in all religions, magic, and mysticism. Thus the various

sexual convolutions of Merlin in the modern fiction are not merely

misunderstandings of the source of material but are explorations of a universal

theme expressed through the mediating figure of Merlin. Merlin is also seen as a

teacher, like in Parke Godwin.s .Firelord.. Here Merlin is in a sense

Arthur.s own inner self, able to show him a vision of the future, of the great

king and warrior whose presence draws the very utmost effort from the men who

follow him, the man that Arthur is to become, driven by the Merlin within. In

T.H. White.s .The Sword in the Stone. Merlin teaches by example, turning

Arthur into animal, fish, or bird. Doing so he learns many things, from his

encounter with a great pike that lives beneath the walls of his

foster-father.s castle, he learns that power for its own sake leads nowhere.

Arthur as a bird discovers that boundaries are an illusion fought over without

reason. All that he learns allows him to portray his good character as he pulls

the sword from the stone that made him king. Him being a teacher is also seen in

the .Crystal Cave. when he is given Arthur at birth to teach because he did

not have a father that wanted him, and so his mother thought that giving the

child to Merlin would be the wisest thing to do. In Catherine Christians .The

Sword and the Flame. it has Merlin arranging for Arthur to acquire his second,

more famous sword, Excalibur. Instead of him receiving the sword from the Lady

of the Lake, Merlin assists in its forging by an ancient Smith God from a lump

of meteorite. .That the shaping of King or sword may extend beyond a single

lifetime is shown in those versions of the story where Merlin or Arthur come

again, after a long sleep, in Avalon or the Hawthorn Tower, to continue the work

left unfinished at the end of the Arthurian Age.. (Stewart, 99) When writing

about Merlin there are three aspect that author.s look into, the bright youth,

the mad prophet and shaman, and the wise elder. All three are

Внимание, отключите Adblock

Вы посетили наш сайт со включенным блокировщиком рекламы!
Ссылка для скачивания станет доступной сразу после отключения Adblock!

Скачать