Malory's Morte D'Arthur: Remaking Arthurian Tradition

by C. Batt

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312229986
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	05/30/2002
Series:	The New Middle Ages
Edition description:	2002
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.03(d)

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

Structures and Traditions Desire and Violence: Merlin's 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 D'Arthur

Editorial Reviews

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

From the Publisher

Batt (English, U. of Leeds) explores Malory's construction of the inherent instability of the male physical body as locus of meaning, and how this technique reflects the more experimental concerns of the 15th-century Latin text as a whole. His anxiety about the problem, she says, undermined his attempt to portray the Arthurian world as free of the deficiencies of his own time. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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