Writing Out the Sin: Arthur, Charlemagne and the Spectre of Incest

Abstract

One difficulty in writing about the incest inherent in the French medieval tales of Charlemagne and Arthur is that one inevitably finds oneself employing vocabulary of rumour and supposition. Incest in many texts concerning both monarchs is a kind of ghost: a presence which haunts the text without being entirely present, an unspoken allegation written between the lines of literature and hanging in the air of oral tradition, hinting at an unknowable past and crying out for an explanation some time in the future. In this article, I focus on modern critical articulations of the spectral in order to bring the nebulous sin with which Arthur and Charlemagne are accused into sharper focus. Derrida theorises the presence of the spectre, which is only ever detected rather than perceived, since it can only exist in a plane beyond human vision or chronology. In Butler's terms, a prohibition instigates and maintains the spectre of its transgression. These two formulations of the spectral illuminate incest in the literary traditions of Charlemagne and Arthur, figured as it is by writing which cannot be incorporated into the written narrative, but which is nevertheless crucial to that narrative, and can only be seen with the benefit of hindsight.