I have tried to post this via Beta but it collapsed so here we go again:
Knights of the times table BY Robert Cockburn The Australian
Edition WED 25 JUL 2001,
www.theaustrallan.com.au/highered
Brisbane scholar's interpretation of Camelot has caused an uproar in the
world of medieval literature, reports Robert Cockburn
Unassuming University of Queensland scholar seems to have scooped the
academic world with a discovery about the legends of King Arthur and his
court. Joan Helm believes she has unearthed a secret subtext that has
remained hidden for 800 years. Original Arthurian romances, the tales of
Camelot, King Arthur, his queen Guinevere, Lancelot and the story of the
holy grail, were written by a Frenchman d Chretien De Troyes in the 12th
century. Scholars have always been baffled by some of the more bizarre
episodes described in the stories: Chretien's 'fits of madness, for
instance, strange number puzzles or the Arthurian coronation robes
emblazoned with symbols of geometry, arithmetic, music and astronomy. For
eight centuries no manuscript analyst had been able to work out what they
all meant. a down-to-earth UQ scholar. Like many people when they reach
midlife and their children have left home, Helm wanted an intellectual
challenge. She enrolled in an English literature course at UQ and one of her
course books happened to be Chretien's Arthurian Romances, translated into
English. I read them I became irritated by the way Lancelot and others
swooned into madness at the sight of Guinevere's golden hair," she says.---I
am a mum and a grandma and I know what teenage boys are like. Lancelot is so
excessive that I knew there had to be another explanation. There had to be
some deeper meaning is ridiculous behaviour. I suspected that Chretien was
trying to convey something else, but for some reason was disguising his
meaning." a latter-day Miss Marple. Helm began a quest that was to take her
along an academic road that was as exciting as it was fraught. she taught
herself Old French so she could follow the legends in the original. Then she
applied her mathematical brain (she has a phenomenal aptitude for hers, of
which she was virtually unaware until she began this investigation) to the
words and discovered a remarkable sequence of numbers that provided a to
unlocking some of the legends' mysteries. : all good detective stories, the
clue that was to unravel the secret lay in a small detail. Sorting
photocopies of the manuscript's pages on her living-room, Helm saw a huge
grid system unfolding in its precisely numbered lines. Unexplained ornate
capitals and events are written at line numbers that correspond to Greek
mathematical ratios. two most famous legends are Lancelot, or the Knight of
the Cart and The Story of the Grail, which is not called the holy grail in
the original. Lancelot is the of a knight torn between his love and his
honour. As Arthur's most trusted warrior, he falls in love with Guinevere.
Choosing love over honour, Lancelot ends into madness and becomes an
outcast -- a parallel with those who defied the church to follow Platonic
philosophy. following Chretien's clues, Helm found examples of classical
structural and narrative patterns inspired by Greek, Arab and Jewish
learning being rediscovered in Christian Europe at the time. Chretien was
writing for Henry 11 and Eleanor of Aquitaine in the 12th century, an age of
crusades and tumultuous change. tales mirror their passions and power games
but also -- according to Helm the scientific and philosophical discoveries
that would shape the Western world. Such learning was condemned as heresy by
the church. which was swift to excommunicate overt writers such as Abelard
(of Abelard and Heloise fame). Helm's discovery suggest Chretien was being
deliberately covert to avoid the Christian Church's threat of eternal
damnation?
Academics will probably argue about it for the next eight centuries. One of
Helm's theories concerns an ornate, painted capital E appears for no
particular reason in the middle of the manuscript telling the story of
Lancelot. (No one, including Helm, has a theory as to why it is an E as
opposed to any other letter.)
She argues that the E is at line 4401. By dividing the total line count of
the story, 7118, by 4401, you arrive at the Greek golden mean, 1618 or pi.
This is the sacred geometry Plato said the gods used to create the universe.
It shapes the spiral of the nautilus shell and the face of the sunflower,
and gives the proportions of the Parthenon and Europe's gothic cathedrals.
"It sounds strange today, but the medieval mind was obsessed with the
mystical power of Greek numbers and geometry," says Helm. "These new
numerals were thought of as something evil because they had come from the
pagan world this was enough to get them banned.
"When I saw the geometric pattern emerging, I thought: 'Bingo.' Here is an
explanation for some of the characters' absurd behaviour. It made me very
happy. "I saw that knights went into trances with golden hair at line
numbers corresponding with those golden ratios in Lancelot. Through-out
Arthurian Romances you get these apparently absurd scenes that you feel must
have some concealed meaning. They did not seem to have any Intelligent or
logical explanation. When Lancelot finds the golden hairs of Guinevere in a
comb, for example, he swoons Into a trance of rapture that goes on and on
and on. Why do you find a grown man swooning into some trance just because
he found a hair in a comb?
"As Lancelot praises his forbidden love for the king's wife, he says: 'He
who obeys Love's command is uplifted and all shall be forgiven him. 'I think
Chretien is also expressing here a love for the forbidden Platonic
philosophy.
"In the tale of Cliges, the hero is given a shirt by Guinevere with a golden
hair embroidered in it. The story says, again at the significant golden
ratio line: 'When he beheld the hair he thought he was lord of the whole
world'- which I interpret as a reference to the ancient Greek creation
story."
Helm has similar explanations for Chretien's obsession with the numbers
three and five in Erec and Enide and the first haunting Story of the Grail.
"At the time I didn't realise what I had stumbled across. There is far more
treasure in this manuscript than one would think. I suppose the reason no
scholars have divined these extra meanings in the legends before is because
literary people generally don't know much about maths."
It would be easy to be fooled by her cardigan and soft voice, but Helm has a
steely determination and is irreverently humorous about the literary
establishment. Reared in a strict Victorian family, she has a pioneering
spirit. She might have been untutored (although she has gained her
doctorate), but she is also intellectually free of the burden of work by
previous scholars.
Her homespun philosophy comes from a mind that is sharp and sceptical - and
not afraid to take chances. Her uncovering of hidden meanings, of a
multicultural Arthur in what have always been assumed were Christian tales,
is startling. Keith Atkinson, professor of French, who supervised Helm's
postgraduate work at UQ, is full of praise for his student. "Joan's
discovery has dramatically shifted our understanding of medieval
construction principles in texts," he says. "Her work means a major
rethink."
David Howlett, the editor of Oxford University's medieval Latin dictionary,
who has met opposition to his research on the structure of religious and
literary manuscripts, says of Helm's findings: "Chretien's pattern leaps off
the page at you. He didn't invent the pattern but is a supreme practitioner
of it. How long do you think the arm of coincidence is?"
But William W. Kibler, the translator of Penguin Classics' Arthurian
Romances and one of the world's leading medievalists, is dismissive. "I am
not big on number symbolism," he says. "Chretien was not writing for an
audience that was going to sit down with the manuscript and try to puzzle it
out. Why does Lancelot behave the way he does? Is he simply crazy or Is he
in love? And if you are in love, why do you behave so crazily? People who
are in love do foolish things. That is what life is like."
Of Helm's assertion that Chretien had a "greater purpose", she admits: "I
really do not know what his meaning is. Scholars are still trying to figure
out what he means."
Whether what Helm has uncovered turns out to be the holy grail of literary
discoveries, her work adds an enthralling dimension to the mystery of
Camelot.
The Times Robert Cockburn and Film Culture Pty Ltd are making a television
documentary about Joan Helm's work with support from the Australian Film
Commission
.
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