(Minor Field) Malory in Context

OVERVIEW This field intends to explore the literary background to the Morte Darthur: its sources, book history and reincarnations in later texts. The first section will consider the relationship between the Winchester manuscript and Caxton's edition of the Morte Darthur. In addition, this section will be concerned with the position of the Morte as a early printed book, and the context in which its publication took place. The next two sections deal with Malory's source material and analogues. Both English and French sources formed the foundations for Malory's plot, narrative techniques and style. His achievement lay in the way he, as Caxton puts it, "reduced" a varying and complex set of narratives into a coherent "hoole book". My second section concentrates on the English sources. The alliterative Morte Arthure and stanzaic Morte Arthur are the key texts here; I have also included other English Arthurian literature which may have provided Malory with some of his background, or offers a contrast to interpretations of knighthood in the Morte Darthur, such as Sir Gawain and The Green Knight. My third section looks at some of the French sources which Malory used; these were particularly important for his development of Tristram and Lancelot. In dealing with these sources, I will be comparing their portrayal of different knights, particularly, Arthur, Lancelot, Gawain and Tristram. My final section offers a brief foray into the diverse use which modern authors have made of Malory, continuing the tradition of reshaping the Arthurian narrative to fit the current time.

MALORY & CAXTON The Works of Sir Thomas Malory. Ed. E. Vinaver, rev. P. J. C. Field, 3rd edn. Oxford UP, 1990. 3 vols. Caxton's Malory: A New Edition of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur based on the Pierpont Morgan Copy of William Caxton's edition of 1485. Ed. James W. Spisak. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983. The Winchester Malory: A Facsimile. Ed. N. R. Ker. EETS S. S. 4. Oxford UP, 1976. ENGLISH SOURCES & ANALOGUES Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain. Trans. Lewis Thorpe. London: Penguin Books, 1966. Hardyng, John. The Chronicle. Ed. H. Ellis. London: Rivington, 1812. Selections. King Arthur's Death: the Middle English stanzaic Morte Arthur and alliterative Morte Arthure. Ed. Larry D. Benson, revised by Edward E. Foster. Kalamazoo, Mich: TEAMS, 1994. Middle English Verse Romances. Ed. Donald B. Sands. New York: Holt Rinehart, 1966. "Sir Launfal", "The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell". Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Eds J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon, 2nd edn, revised by Norman Davis. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925, 1967. FRENCH SOURCES Chrétien de Troyes. Arthurian Romances. Trans. William W. Kibler. London: Penguin Books, 1991. "The Knight of the Cart". Lancelot of the Lake. Trans. Corin Corley. Oxford UP, 1989. Suite du roman de Merlin. Ed. H. B. Wheatley, EETS OS 21 New York: Greenwood Press, 1969. Le roman de Tristan en prose. Ed. Renee Curtis, 3 vols. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1985. The Death of King Arthur. Trans. James Cable. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971, 1978. The Quest of the Holy Grail. Trans. P. M. Matarasso. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969. Thomas of Britain, Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan with the Tristan of Thomas, trans. A.T. Hatto. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967. MALORY REINTERPRETED Jones, David. In Parenthesis. New York: New York Review Book, 1937, 2003. White, T. H. The Once and Future King. London: Collins, 1958.

SECONDARY READINGS A Companion to Malory. Ed. Elizabeth Archibald and A. S. G. Edwards, Arthurian Studies 37. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1996, repr. 2000. Aspects of Malory. Eds Toshiyuki Takamiya and Derek Brewer. Woodbridge, Sussex: Brewer; Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1981. Archibald, Elizabeth. 'Malory's Ideal of Fellowship.' The Review of English Studies 43 (1992). Benson, L. D. Malory's 'Morte Darthur.' Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1976. Blake, N. F. Caxton and his World. New York: London House and Maxwell, 1969. Caxton: England's First Publisher. London: Osprey Publishing, 1976. William Caxton and English Literary Culture. London: Hambledon House, 1991. Hellinga, Lotte. Caxton in Focus: the Beginning of Printing in England. London: British Library, 1982. Field, P. J. C. Romance and Chronicle. London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1971. Malory: Texts and Sources, ed. P. J. C. Field, Arthurian Studies 40. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1998. Kennedy, Beverly. Knighthood in the Morte Darthur, Arthurian Studies 11. Woodbridge, Sussex: D. S. Brewer, 1985. Lambert, Mark. Malory: Style and Vision in Le Morte Darthur, Yale Studies in English 186. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975. Lynch, A. Malory's Book of Arms: the Narrative of Combat in 'Le Morte Darthur', Arthurian Studies 34. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1997. Riddy, Felicity. Sir Thomas Malory. Leiden: Brill, 1987. The Social and Literary Contexts of Malory's Morte Darthur. Arthurian Studies 42. Ed. D. T. Hanks Jr and J. G. Brogdon. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2000. Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid. The two versions of Malory's Morte d'Arthur: Multiple Negation and the Editing of the Text. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1995. The Malory Debate: Essays on the Texts of Le Morte Darthur. Ed. Bonnie Wheeler, Robert L. Kindrick and Michael N. Salda. Arthurian Studies 47. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer: 2000. Essays by William Matthews, Charles Moorman, P. J. C. Field, N. F. Blake and Helen Cooper.