| The world of Thomas Malory's Book of Sir Tristram De Lyones is contained in two realities. The natural is ephemeral, subjective, limited, and mediated while the supernatural is eternal, absolute, universal, and direct. Yet, because humans exist in the physical and natural, knowledge starts with discursive perception-cognition between sensed bodies to create layers of semantic bodies in constant flux. In this paper, I attempt to map out a functional epistemological model for the knights who populate the Trystram universe by extrapolating general tendencies from ritualized conventions of perception, the modality of touch in particular, and then highlight the inherent instability of reliance on the body by examining moments in which these basic rules break down or lead to unexpected and undesired results. I will then show that rather than being a stabilizing influence, the awareness of an absolute supernatural reality actually exacerbates the chaos of experience by imposing on top of the negotiated structures of reality a non-negotiable, inescapable, yet inaccessible framework. |
