Synopses & Reviews
This study innovatively explores how Malorys
Morte Darthur responds to available literary vernacular Arthurian traditions—the French defined as theoretical in impulse, the English as performative and experimental. Negotiating these influences, Malory transforms constructions of masculine heroism, especially in the presentation of Launcelot, and exposes the tensions and disillusions of the Arthurian project. The
Morte poignantly conveys a desire for integrity in narrative and subject-matter, but at the same time tests literary conceptualizations of history, nationalism, gender and selfhood, and considers the failures of social and legal institutionalizations of violence, in a critique of literary form and of social order.
Review
"This is a Malory for the twenty-first century. Catherine Batt speaks with a new and individual voice, locating the
Morte Darthur at the interstices of French and English Arthurian traditions. She is a rare and enviable combination: someone who is thoroughly at ease with late-medieval literature in two languages, and whose readings are sprightly, sophisticated and intellectually challenging. In
Remaking Arthurian Tradition she remakes Malory's
Morte Darthur for us." --Felicity Riddy, University of York, UK
Synopsis
This in-depth and often theoretical and challenging analysis of Morte D'arthur examines the ways in which Malory brought the social and literary orders together each with the masculine hero at the centre. Batt shows how Malory adapted his French and English sources to explore the disparity between idealised institutions, such as the court and the chivalrous knight, and reality.
About the Author
Catherine Batt is a Lecturer in the School of English, University of Leeds. She has published on Anglo-Norman, Middle English, and twentieth-century literature, and is editor of
Essays on Thomas Hoccleve.
Table of Contents
Structures and Traditions * Desire and Violence: Merlins Narratives * Narrative Form and Heroic Expectation:
The Tale of Arthur and Lucius, A Noble Tale of Sir Lancelot du Lake, The Tale of Sir Gareth of Orkney * Setting Limits: Textual and Social Parameters of
The Book of Sir Tristram * Spiritual Community: Fatherhood and Gender in
The Book of the Sankgreal * The Commemorative and the Exemplary in the
Morte Darthur