Letters from the Otherworld. Arthur and Henry II in Stephen of Rouen’s Draco Normannicus

The poem Draco Normannicus includes a correspondence between King Arthur, now ruler of the Antipodes, and Henry II. Arthur reminds Henry of his deeds to discourage him from conquering Britanny. Henry first laughs at Arthur’s letter, but then, urged by the news of his mother’s death, he replies suggesting that he will hold Britanny under Arthur’s suzerainty.This paper analyses these fictional letters, focusing on two main aspects, closely related to each other. 1) Intertextuality on different levels: Arthur’s letter is modeled on Lucius Tiberius’ letter in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae; Henry suggests a comparison between this correspondence and the one between Darius and Alexander; Arthur claims that the deeds he mentions are true because already told by Gildas and Geoffrey of Monmouth. 2) Political ideology: humour is not the only key to interpret the text, the purpose of the poem is not only to mock the ‘Breton hope’, but also to celebrate Henry II as a glorious monarch, legitimately ruling over his ‘empire’.