Sir Thomas Malory and the 'Piteous History of the Morte of King Arthur'

1928 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fox
Keyword(s):  
Sir Thomas Malory ◽  
King Arthur ◽  
History Of ◽  
Thomas Malory

Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte DArthur: Selections, ed. Maureen Okun. Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 2015, 374 pp., 7 b/w ill.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 482-482
Author(s):  
Albrecht Classen
Keyword(s):  
British Literature ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Sir Thomas Malory ◽  
King Arthur ◽  
Morte Darthur ◽  
Reasonable Alternative ◽  
Complete Work ◽  
History Of ◽  
Entire History ◽  
Thomas Malory

As important as Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Artur certainly proves to be for the entire history of medieval English literature, its massive volume makes it difficult for many of our students today to read the complete work. The present selection offers a more or less reasonable alternative and deserves to be considered for a variety of English literature courses. Maureen Okun offers the following sections: from From the Marriage of King Uther unto King Arthur; from A Noble Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake; from Sir Tristram de Lyones; from The Noble Tale of the Sankgreal; from The Tale of Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere; and from The Death of Arthur.

scholarly journals T/V Pronouns and FTAs in the Works of Sir Thomas Malory: Medieval Politeness and Impoliteness in Directives, Expressives, and Commissives

2020 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-176
Author(s):  
Malwina Wiśniewska-Przymusińska
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Sir Thomas Malory ◽  
King Arthur ◽  
Potential Influence ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Pragmatic Research ◽  
Thomas Malory

Abstract Middle English second person pronouns thou and you (T/V) are considered to be among the means employed by medieval speakers to express their attitudes towards each other. Along with face-threatening acts, the use of these pronouns could indicate power relations or solidarity/distance between the interactants (Taavitsainen & Jucker 2003; Jucker 2010; Mazzon 2010; Bax & Kádár 2011, 2012; Jucker 2012). Using the tools available in pragmatic research, this paper attempts to provide an analysis of selected fragments from The Works of Sir Thomas Malory (Vinaver 1948 [1947]), analysed through the lens of Searle’s speech act theory (1969, 1976). The aim of this paper is to investigate whether the usage of T/V pronouns in polite or impolite contexts depends on the speech act in which they appear or not. Secondly, it looks at the presence of face-threatening acts (FTAs) and their potential influence on polite or impolite pronoun usage. Lastly, the analysis looks at the usage of FTAs within specific speech acts. The fragments used in this article were chosen from five chapters of Malory’s text: The Tale of King Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere, The Morte Arthur, The Noble Tale, and Tristram de Lyones.

Characterization in Malory's Tale of Arthur and Lucius

PMLA ◽  
1950 ◽  
Vol 65 (5) ◽  
pp. 877-895
Author(s):  
Mary E. Dichmann
Keyword(s):  
Round Table ◽  
Sir Thomas Malory ◽  
Careful Examination ◽  
King Arthur ◽  
Cogent Argument ◽  
Thomas Malory

One of the most important recent publications in the field of late mediaeval literature is Eugène Vinaver's edition of The Works of Sir Thomas Malory,1 which has made available a more accurate text for the study of Malory's writings than any scholar has previously had at his disposal. As Vinaver points out in the Preface to this work (i, vi), his edition, which is based on the recently discovered Winchester MS.,2 is much closer to what Malory actually wrote than is Caxton's emended version, and consequently invalidates many conjectures made by those who have known Malory only as he is presented by Caxton. A careful examination of this MS. and a painstaking comparison of it with the sources on which Malory drew have caused Vinaver to reverse several opinions that he previously supported by cogent argument3 and have led him to two general conclusions: (1) that Malory's writings should not be regarded as a unified account of the rise and fall of King Arthur and the Round Table, but rather as eight separate romances whose subjects were drawn independently from the Arthurian cycle (I, XXIX-XXXV) and (2) that the order of composition of the tales was not in the sequence presented by both Caxton and the Winchester MS., since evidence shows (I, XXV-XL) that the story of the war with Rome, which Vinaver calls the Tale of the Noble King Arthur and the Emperor Lucius (Caxton Book v), was written before the Tale of King Arthur (Caxton Books I, II, III, and IV).4

The Tale of the Death of King Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory. Eugène Vinaver

Speculum ◽  
1956 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 420-421
Author(s):  
Helaine Newstead
Keyword(s):  
Sir Thomas Malory ◽  
King Arthur ◽  
Thomas Malory

Violence, Memory, and History: Geoffrey of Monmouth and Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-344
Author(s):  
Jonathan Brent
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Geoffrey Of Monmouth ◽  
King Arthur ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Kazuo Ishiguro ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation

Kazuo Ishiguro has suggested that his work of medieval fantasy, The Buried Giant (2015), draws on a “quasi-historical” King Arthur, in contrast to the Arthur of legend. This article reads Ishiguro’s novel against the medieval work that codified the notion of an historical King Arthur, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1139). Geoffrey’s History offered a largely fictive account of the British past that became the most successful historiographical phenomenon of the English Middle Ages. The Buried Giant offers an interrogation of memory that calls such “useful” constructions of history into question. The novel deploys material deriving from Geoffrey’s work while laying bear its methodology; the two texts speak to each other in ways sometimes complementary, sometimes deconstructive. That Ishiguro’s critique can be applied to Geoffrey’s History points to recurrent strategies of history-making, past and present, whereby violence serves as a mechanism for the creation of historical form.

scholarly journals A Wealth of Evidence: The Identity of the Man Commemorated at Sutton Hoo

Elements ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dmitri Phillips
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Round Table ◽  
King Arthur ◽  
Burial Mound ◽  
World War ◽  
East Anglia ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual

The history of England did not begin with the Industrial Revolution and not everything supposed about the Anglo-Saxons reduces to the myth of King Arthur and the Round Table. Contrary to commonly held beliefs, the Dark Ages of the North were full of splendor and brilliance; the only thing dark about them is their enshrouded history, but that only makes them all the more fascinating. The great burial mound at Sutton Hoo in East Anglia, discovered just before World War II, shines as one of the most grandiose sepulchers in history, yet the identity of its occupant remains a mystery. Was it a wealthy merchant, a warrior from overseas, or a great king? This paper gathers, presents, and scrutinizes the evidence and arguments from ancient records, opulate grave-goods, and contemporary investigations in an attempt to determine the most likely candidate for the individual interred in Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo.

‘Ile be the bane of Cornwall Kinge’: The ballad of King Arthur and King Cornwall and the relentless pursuit of vengeance in the pre-modern Arthurian tradition

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-35
Author(s):  
Geert van Iersel
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Internal Conflict ◽  
King Arthur ◽  
Morte Darthur ◽  
History Of ◽  
Le Morte Darthur

Abstract This paper concerns the narrative logic behind the disregard for the life of King Arthur’s opponent in the seventeenth-century ballad of King Arthur and King Cornwall. It approaches its subject through comparisons with the last book of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, Le pèlerinage de Charlemagne, Le petit Poucet, Jack and the Beanstalk and the History of Mother Twaddle, and the Marvellous Atchievements [sic] of her Son Jack. It argues that by associating Arthur’s rival, King Cornwall, with magic objects and a fire-breathing creature called Burlow Beanie, as well as placing Cornwall’s domain away from Arthur’s, the ballad marks Cornwall as ‘other’ and, in so doing, implies that ordinary moral considerations do not apply when it comes to actions such as the killing of Cornwall. The article additionally argues that a major difference between the ballad and the last book of Le Morte Darthur, where much of the action is driven by factors that also feature prominently in King Arthur and King Cornwall, lies in the fact that in Le Morte Darthur none of the major actors are marked as ‘other’ – highlighting the nature of the tragedy that unfolds as one of destructive internal conflict.

Conclusion

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Hingley
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Roman History ◽  
King Arthur ◽  
State Control ◽  
Scottish Highlands ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
Extension Of State ◽  
The Devil

The works examined above have been explored through a chronological study based upon the four overlapping themes of civility/ Romanization, the walling out of humanity, Roman incomers, and ruination, emphasized through a reading of the sources to explore how the discovery of objects and sites has helped to inform a number of contrasting interpretations that went in and out of fashion. A number of more local and fragmented tales have also been addressed in passing and it is evident that a very different account could have been articulated if I had drawn more directly upon such ideas. Tales, such as those of Onion the Silchester Giant, Graham’s creation of a breach in the Antonine Wall, King Arthur and his ‘O’on’ at Camelon in central Scotland and the activities of the devil at Rodmarton, provide information about how local people interpreted the physical remains of the Romans in Britain. The focus on elite tales in this book should not detract from the potential of local myths, but a thorough study of such material remains to be undertaken. Instead, this book has emphasized stories that have been told about the pre- Roman and Roman history of Britain that served to develop relevant national and imperial tales. The significance of the civilizing of the ancient Britons drove a particular approach to the ancient sources during the early seventeenth century that emphasized the passing on of Roman civility to people of England (or Lowland Britain). From this point of view, the ruined Roman Walls projected the territorial limit of civility, beyond which were the lands of barbarians. Towards the end of the century, a new interpretation arose that placed emphasis on the Roman settlers, their ‘stations’, and roads, reflecting the contemporary military aspect of society while envisaging England (or Lowland Britain) as the inheritor of Roman civility. This military conception was redefined and updated during the succeeding centuries as an analogy for the extension of state control over the Scottish Highlands and later for the exploration, documentation, and domination of territories in India and elsewhere.

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