The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

by John Steinbeck

  "Malory wrote the stories for and to his time. Any man hearing him knew every word and every reference. There was nothing obscure, he wrote the clear and common speech of his time and country. But that has changed--the words and the references are no longer common property, for a new language has come into being. Malory did not write the stories. He simply wrote them for his time and his time understood them." And so you know, Chase, suddenly in this home ground, I was not afraid of Malory any more nor ever will be again. This does not lessen my admiration but it does not inhibit me either. Only I can write this for my time. And as for place--the place has become not a little island set in a silver sea, but the world.

  And with that, almost by enchantment the words began to flow, a close-reined, taut, economical English, unaccented and unlocalized. I put down no word that has not been judged for general understanding. Where my time cannot fill in, I build up, and where my time would be impatient with repetition, I cut. So did Malory for his time. It is just as simple as that and I think it is the best prose I have ever written. I hope this is so and I believe it. Where there is obscurity or paradox I let intuition, my own judgment and the receptivity of our times govern me.

  I'm trying to hold the production down. I don't want it to race but to come sweetly out so that every word is necessary and the sentences fall musically on the ear. What Joy. I have no doubts any more. I goddam well can write it. Just wanted you to know. In fact I am writing it.

  "ludly sing cucu"

  TO ERO--SOMERSET, MARCH 30, 1959

  I have forgotten how long it is since I have written you. Time loses all its meaning. The peace I have dreamed about is here, a real thing, thick as a stone and feelable and something for your hands. Work goes on with a slow, steady pace like that of laden camels. And I have so much joy in the work. Maybe the long day off is responsible or perhaps it is only Somerset but the tricks are gone, and the cleanness and the techniques and style that I can only think of as a kind of literary couture, changeable as the seasons. Instead, the words that gather to my pen are honest sturdy words, needing no adjectival crutches. There are many more than I will ever need. And they arrange themselves in sentences that seem to me to have a rhythm as honest and unshaken as a heart beat. The sound of them is sweet in my ears so that they seem to me to have the strength and sureness of untroubled children or fulfilled old men.

  I move along with my translation of the Morte but it is no more a translation than Malory's was. I am keeping it all but it is mine as much as his was his. I told you I think that I am not afraid of Malory any more for I know that I can write better for my time than he could have, just as he wrote better for his time than anyone else.

  Meanwhile I can't describe the joy. In the mornings I get up early to have a time to listen to the birds. It's a busy time for them. Sometimes for over an hour I do nothing but look and listen and out of this comes a luxury of rest and peace and something I can only describe as in-ness. And then when the birds have finished and the countryside goes about its business, I come up to my little room to work. And the interval between sitting and writing grows shorter every day.

  TO ERO--SOMERSET, APRIL 5, 1959

  Another week gone and how did that happen? With daily work and mail and spring coming, and gardening and going to Morlands at Glastonbury to see the processing of sheepskins as they have been done since prehistory. I don't know 1st how the week went so fast and 2nd how so much was accomplished in that week.

  The work continues a joy and a trial to me. End of last week and into the next, the Battle of Bedgrayne, a terrible mess, even to Malory. I have to straighten out not only what happened but why, and cut deeply. Present-day people can read unlimited baseball scores in which the narration isn't very great and fifteenth-century people could listen to innumerable single combats with little variation. I have to bridge that so that the battle remains important, exciting, and doesn't get lost in a hundred running together of individual knights and still keep the sense that war was a series of man-to-man fights. Is a problem. This is the most terrible mess in the whole first part. Malory can take six pages for the fighting, but when the most important two things in the first part happen--the conception of Mordred and the meeting with Guinevere--he devotes two lines to each. I can't spend much time on them but I have to give them dreadful importance. Never a dull moment, you see.

  Now a question for Chase to mull over. When the battle is over and Merlin hotfoots it to Northumberland and reports all the details and names to hys mayster Blayse. And Blayse wrote the batayle word for word as Merlin told him--And all the battles fought in Arthur's time and all the worthy deeds of Arthur's court, Merlin told to Blayse and Blayse wrote them down. Now--who the hell was Blayse or who did Malory think he was? Does he occur in the Frensshe books? Did Malory make him up? I would be very glad to know what Chase has to say about this.

  TO CHASE--SOMERSET, APRIL 9, 1959

  I must be careful to avoid repeating what I have already written to Elizabeth and what you have doubtless seen. This morning a letter from Jackson. They have the dictionaries and I have ordered them. They have no lexicon of Cornish Celtic but suggest I try hereabouts which I will. Also no Middle English and I did not bring mine. They say it has been taken over from Oxford and is now handled by Michigan University Press. I think mine is Oxford and I left it at home. And darn it, I need one. Could you please either send me mine or another. I think that is all I will need. It's mostly words and their meanings. The rest I will find in Malory and in myself. I am getting an entirely new look at Arthur in the Merlin part and, I suppose it follows, a new look at Malory and myself. Enormous profundities here for one who wants to look. From the dream (serpents--throughout the questing beast to the recognition of the mother) is all one piece. But you will see what I have done with it when I send it. I will record it on tape in case of loss and probably will send the hand-written ms. on to you. Mary Morgan can type it, several copies on thin paper, and then maybe I can have a copy back, but I will have the tape recording just in case anything should happen. It never does happen if you are protected. I would like it if you would begin to work on a standardization of the names of people and places and also identification with names and places used today, at least where possible the places Malory was thinking of when he was writing. As for the proper names, they should be reduced to their greatest simplicity and made easy to pronounce. And all of the uncommon ones standardized. That in itself is a big job but I know you have done a lot with it already so you are well prepared. The Merlin has been a bitch with all of its confusions but I think you will be pleased with my handling of the Battle of Bedgrayne--a very difficult passage to bring out I can assure you. Also I can't tell you often enough what a good move this was to come here. If there were nothing else, the peace and the pace make it worth doing.

  Three days in London next week. A kind of clearing of the palate for the Knight with the Two Swords. This is a profound piece and entirely different. It has the Greek sense of tragedy--man against fate, beyond his control and wish, and I must get everything I can from it. The form is all here in the Morte but sometimes it is out of perspective for the modern reader. It is that bringing it into focus that is my job. And I shall be really anxious to know what you think of what I am doing. No one seems even to have attempted it. I wonder why. As Vinaver says, no one thinks to go back to Malory. Well, I am and I find it very rewarding and I hope to make it rewarding.

  This is the great changeable month for showers and for times of brilliant sun in the last hours. The gas stove went out last night and I had to build it back and in the process I learned.

  In the ancient back of Mr. Windmill's ironmongery there is a forge and tools from the Middle Ages. Mr. Arthur Strand still uses them and he can make anything. He has become my pal. I may ask him to make me an axe or at least to adapt one. Maybe he will let me do it myself at his forge. I want an axe like the ones the Norse and Saxon warriors carried for war and work. All modern axes have a straight blade like th
is.This makes the force of the blow distributed along the whole length of the blade. But the old one was like thisso that the impact was on a small area and gave it much better penetration. With the old axe you can practically carve wood because of the small area of impact. I must speak to Mr. Arthur about that. He can probably find me some old adzes too. In the evenings I am back to my wood carving--It lets me go on thinking and still have my hands busy. I'm making spoons for the kitchen now--out of pieces of old oak.

  I think I'll go on a little on thin paper. I'm not quite warmed up for work yet.

  TO CHASE--SOMERSET, APRIL 11, 1959

  (continuing letter of April 9, 1959)

  Now it is Saturday, I don't know how it got to be. I shall finish the Merlin either today or tomorrow, and I really think it is good. But looking back through the pages I see many little things I want to change. Therefore I think I am wrong in the interest of hurry to send the ms. to you. I shall have it typed here, correct the typescript before I send it on. Then it will be much more nearly right. This will have had several treatments so that what you will receive will amount to a corrected third draft and when Mary Morgan types in the changes, it will be much more nearly finished. It will be longer before you receive it, but I think worth the time.

  Well, the Merlin is nearly done and it is a far more profound and warming thing than I had thought. I do hope I am making the most of it. I have a wonderful sense of joy in what I have done. I don't know whether that will be sustained in rereading. But it is worth it to have it at all.

  I have made some quite good spoons for cooking and I have done so well that I have designed some salad forks which I hope I can execute for Elaine. The bowl of one will be the Tudor Rose and the bowl of the other the Triple Cross of Rome. And when they clash in tossing lettuce there will be a little bit of history in the salad bowl. I hope I can do them nicely. It is a nice thought, it seems to me.

  Time now to go back to work. I shall finish this later. But I have a curious fight and then the sword--the sword of swords.

  And I did--and I like it. And now I will finish this letter and send it on. Today came books we had ordered. Two volumes 1832 a history of Somerset with all the details of Dugdale. What a joy!

  I'm going down now to the joys of the Somerset books. Graham Watson found them for us and they are very rare.

  TO ERO--SOMERSET, APRIL 10, 1959

  Another week going fast. I shall finish the Merlin this week and I think it is the hardest of all. I also think it was the hardest for Malory because into this must be crowded all of the background and confusion of Arthur's birth and his assumption of power, of the rebellion and mystery of his birth. It amounts to a long and dissonant chronicle. But I think it is sorting out into something that flows in modern prose, but of course it can never have the rounded or elliptical form of some of the later tales which do not require throwback and where the cast of characters is not so huge. The Battle of Bedgrayne gave me hell but I think it comes through. I had to keep it mounting and moving and I tried to communicate some of the excitement as well as the sadness that is in it. The end of the book is a kind of magic dream full of mood and foreboding, a psychiatrist's dream of heaven if he cared to look. Between the serpent dream and the revelation to Arthur of his true right to the throne, it is all of a piece. I feel that Arthur did not want to know because he was afraid of what he might find. He even goes looking for trouble and action to avoid thinking. This is not unlike experiences in our time, even the dress symbols are still with us unchanged. I'm dealing with all of it as the fringes of a dream. Anyway it is moving along and after this terrible first story nothing else can be as hard.

  TO CHASE--SOMERSET, APRIL 11, 1959

  (from Elaine S.)

  Jackson sent the two-volume History and Antiquities of Somerset by Phelps this morning, and we had to hide them for a day in order to get any work done. They will make fine fireside reading for us.--John is working on "The Lady of the Lake" sequence today, and only comes up for air every two or three hours to get a cup of coffee. He is beginning to live and breathe the book. In the evening he carves wooden spoons for our kitchen and talks about Arthur and Merlin.

  A letter from Eugene Vinaver today tells how homesick he is for France, but he adds: "It is better while I am busy with an English book to be here. English words come more naturally to one's mind when the flowers and the trees around one have English names." He is talking about himself, but I think it applies to John as well, don't you? Arthur seems to be here.

  Vinaver also quotes what John once wrote: "I tell these old stories, but they are not what I want to tell. I only know how I want people to feel when I tell them." Isn't that a wonderful thing? Eugene says it is the truest and most significant sentence he has found in all the innumerable books about books.

  TO ERO--SOMERSET, APRIL 12, 1959

  These long and ponderous chronicles will continue, I suppose. Another week gone or rather past and now it is one month today that we have been in this house.

  One month in this house and it seems like ours. I had thought it would take at least a month and maybe more to get squirmed down in my writing chair, and today I am finishing the Merlin, the hardest and most complex tale of all. Malory wasn't comfortable in it either. He was troubled and unsure how to start and he doubled back and raced ahead and sometimes refuted what he had said a page ago. But I think I have it straightened out now, at least to my satisfaction. Nothing else will be as hard. I can feel this man's mind. He put things down he did not know he was writing and there is the richness, but hidden sometimes very deep. Well, we will see whether it is good or not. I have a feeling that it is.

  Three days in London and then back and to the strange and fated story of the Knight with the Two Swords. I think I understand it--a kind of tragedy of designed errors, one growing out of the last and so building until there is no return. It is the only story of its kind in the whole cycle. When I have finished it, the season will be broad spring and then I shall take one or two days a week to look about me. The pattern will then be set and I will not be afraid of a break. But until then I want not to break my rhythm.

  My joy in the work continues and increases. I think I have pulled an understandable character out of Arthur. And he has always been the weakest and coldest to our modern eyes. And if I can do that, the rich ones, Lancelot and Gawain, will be pure dreams to work with. And I have a curtain line for Merlin. This trick or method was not known in the fifteenth century but readers need it now. And they have it.

  TO CHASE--SOMERSET, APRIL 20, 1959

  About the books. I'm going to ask you to try and get the lexicons you mentioned. It isn't such a rush now that I have the Anglo-Saxon, the Middle English and the two-volume Oxford. The big Oxford I presented to Bob Bolt, who found us this house. He is going to be a very important playwright and no better present could be given a writer. He was practically in tears.

  I am half through the revising of the Merlin and I have changed my mind again. The wife of one of the masters of King's School is a good typist. I would like to see this in type before I send it on to you. I'll ask her to make four copies. This is not final of course but it will be much better if it is typed. It will give you something tangible to play with. I have a little tape recorder for playback now. It gives me a much better sense of words to hear it back. I catch errors I didn't know were there. Good Lord! how this thing grows in me. There is no way of making a tight short story form of the Merlin. It is, to a certain extent, episodic. But I am trying to give it continuity, believability, mood and emotional content, together with a kind of plan for its being. It is actually the formation of a kingdom. Do you remember that I always said that Malory was uneasy in this part? Well so was I. But as he learned, so am I learning. And I have a sense of freedom in this material I never had before. I do hope you will like it. I think it is good writing--as good in its way as Malory's was in its way. I am awfully excited about it.

  TO ERO AND CHASE--SOMERSET, APRIL 20, 1959

&
nbsp; I wrote the beginning of the Merlin. The whole thing should be gone over maybe and redone. I've learned so much about my own method that the early parts are kind of outmoded already. I guess that always happens. Anyway, I'll see what I want to do with it before I send it. I still like what I'm doing. In London I ordered a table-top architect's board that tilts. My back and neck get too tired.

  TO ERO AND CHASE--SOMERSET, APRIL 1959

  What is in a writer's mind--novelist or critic? Doesn't a writer set down what has impressed him most, usually at a very early age? If heroism impressed him, that's what he writes about, and if frustration and a sense of degradation--that is it. And if jealousy is the deepest feeling, then he must attack anything which seems to be the longed-for success.

  Maybe somewhere in here is my interest and joy in what I am doing. Malory lived in as rough and ruthless and corrupt an age as the world has ever produced. In the Morte he in no way minimizes these things, the cruelty and lust, and murder and childlike self-interest. They are all here. But he does not let them put out the sun. Side by side with them are generosity and courage and greatness and the huge sadness of tragedy rather than the little meanness of frustration. And this is probably why he is a great writer and Williams is not. For no matter how brilliantly one part of life is painted, if the sun goes out, that man has not seen the whole world. Day and night both exist. To ignore the one or the other is to split time in two and to choose one like the short stick in a match game. I like Williams and admire his work but as he is half a man, so is he half a writer. Malory was whole. There is nothing in literature nastier than Arthur's murder of children because one of them may grow up to kill him. Williams and many others of this day would stop there, saying, "That's the way it is." And they would never get to the heartbreaking glory when Arthur meets his fate and fights against it and accepts it all in one. How can we have forgotten so much? We produce talented pygmies like court dwarfs who are amusing because they mime greatness and they--I should say we--are still dwarfs. Something happens now to children. An artist should be open on all sides to every kind of light and darkness. But our age almost purposely closes all windows, draws all shades and then later screams to a psychiatrist for light.