Malory's Morte D'Arthur

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxiii

   PDF

2. Structures and Traditions

   • Catherine Batt

   Pages 1-35

3. Desire, History, Violence: Merlin’s Narratives

   • Catherine Batt

   Pages 37-70

4. Narrative Form and Heroic Expectation: The Tale of Arthur and Lucius, The Noble Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake, and The Tale of Sir Gareth of Orkney

   • Catherine Batt

   Pages 71-101

5. Setting Limits: Textual Parameters and Sites of Resistance in The Book of Sir Tristram

   • Catherine Batt

   Pages 103-129

6. Spiritual Community, Gender, and Fatherhood in The Tale of the Sankgreal

   • Catherine Batt

   Pages 131-158

7. Displaced Persons: Readers, Love, Death, and Commemoration

   • Catherine Batt

   Pages 159-181

8. Back Matter

   Pages 183-264

   PDF

This study innovatively explores how Malory's Morte D'Arthur responds to available literary vernacular Arthurian traditions which 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.

• community
• gender
• Institution
• Nation
• nationalism
• violence

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, Centre for Medieval Studies, York University

'This study offers a welcome resolution to what is a continuing challenge in literary analysis of the Morte D'Arthur, namely the need to take into account the book's relationship to its immediate sources and to foregoing Arthurian tradition...Her deliberations are illuminated throughout by an expert knowledge of the material on which Malory drew. The commendably broad textual coverage supports a multi-faceted argument...' - Cheryl Taylor, Parergon

'Batt provides not only significant new information about Malory's sources, but also valuable insights into ambiguities that emerge from out of the complex Arthurian tradition. Containing an excellent bibliography, this book is a must for anyone reading in this field.' - Elizabeth Truax, Literature and History

CATHERINE BATT is a Lecturer in the School of English, University of Leeds. She has articles on Clemence of Barking, the Gawain-Poet, Malory, Caxton, and V.S. Naipaul, and is editor of Essays on Thomas Hoccleve.

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