Comparing Piety in The Wakefield Mystery Plays, The Book of Margery Kempe, and Le Morte D'Arthur
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Comparing Notions of Piety in The Wakefield Mystery Plays, The Book of Margery Kempe, and Le Morte D'Arthur
The monastic lifestyle that Launcelot and his knights adopt after their conversion is one that Margery Kempe might approve of -- doing penance, singing mass, fasting, and remaining abstinent. (MdA, 525) But Launcelot's change of heart is not motivated by the emotions that move Kempe, nor is his attitude towards God the same as can be found in The Book of Margery Kempe and The Wakefield Mystery Plays.
In the Wakefield plays, God wins piety through outright threats. He appears to his followers in visions, as he does in Kempe, but never as a benevolent or comforting presence. Kempe receives her only comfort in life through…show more content… Malory never mentions Hell or the threat of damnation in his Guenever's explanation of her conversion. Guenever instead elucidates to Launcelot her desire to "have sight of the blessed face of Christ, and at doomsday to sit on His right side." (MdA, 523) Her desire to be close to the Lord arises not from fear, as does Abraham's, nor from a childish desire to be reassured of her central goodness in the face of contempt, as does Kempe's. She believes in a heavenly reward for her penitence, but does not mention terror or parental comfort. Malory might find offensive the idea that God would have to sink to bullying to enforce adherence to His orders.
But then, the courtly characters in Malory don't seem very interested in Biblical imperatives to begin with. Illegitimacy (Launcelot's sons), incest (Mordred's conception), killing, and lying (Launcelot's stalwart denial of his 40-year affair with Guenever) are rampant in the court and very little condemnation of this continual flouting of the rules is seen. What does upset one of the more righteous souls, Sir Gawain, are acts of