Beside CHAUCER’s CANTERBURY TALES, Le Morte
Darthur is perhaps the most enduringly popular of
all English texts written in the Middle Ages, and it is
certainly the most famous of all English treatments
of Arthurian legend. Only one manuscript of the
text survives (the “Winchester Manuscript”), copied
sometime before 1483, after Malory’s death in 1471,
but the first printer in England, William Caxton,
produced an edition in 1485, which formed the
basis of nearly all subsequent editions that were to
appear through the first half of the 20th century.
Early critiques of Sir Thomas MALORY’s work
were not always positive: The great Renaissance
scholar Roger Asham, for instance, found that “the
whole pleasure of [the] booke standeth in two speciall poyntes, in open mans-slaughter, and bold
bawdrye (ribaldry)” (The Scholemaster, 1570);
Nathaniel Baxter, Puritan author, and tutor in
Greek to Sir Philip Sydney, found it comprised of
“the horrible actes of those whoremasters,
Launcelot du Lake (LANCELOT DU LAC), Tristram de
Liones, Gareth of Orkney, Merlin, the Lady of the
Lake, with the vile and stinking story of the Sangreall (Holy Grail)” (Baxter’s dedicatory epistle to
the translation of Calvin’s sermons on Jonas,
1577); and the historian William Oldys claimed
that the work “seems to have been kept in print, for
the entertainment of the lighter and more insolid
readers” (Biographia Britannica, 1748).
Approval of Malory is, however, more plentiful—evident, for instance, in his influence on such
writers as Sir Philip Sydney (Defense of Poesie, ca.
1579, and Arcadia, 1578–83), Edmund Spenser
(View of the Present State of Ireland, 1596, and the
Faerie Queene, 1590–1596), Shakespeare (2 Henry
IV, 1597–98), John Milton (Paradise Lost, 1667),
William Wordsworth (“The Egyptian Maid,”
1828), William Morris (The Defence of Guenevere
and Other Poems, 1858), Alfred, Lord Tennyson
(the Idylls of the King, 1859–85), and Mark Twain
(A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,
1889), not to mention a host of writers of modern
fantasy and science fiction.
Le Morte Darthur is conventionally understood
to have eight separate “books” or sections: 1, the
birth of Arthur, his rise to the throne, the tale of
Balyn and Balan, Arthur’s wedding, early adventures of knights of the Round Table; 2, Arthur’s
war with Lucius, emperor of Rome; 3, early adventures of Sir Launcelot du Lake; 4, the story of Sir
Gareth of Orkney; 5, tales of Sir Trystrams de Lyones; 6, the quest for the Holy Grail (Sankgreal);
7, the story of the love between Launcelot and
Guenevere; and 8, the destruction of the court of
Arthur, and the death of Arthur. For most of these,
Malory translated from French prose sources,
though book 2 is derived from an accomplished
English poem, the ALLITERATIVE MORTE ARTHURE.
Book 4 appears to be largely of Malory’s own invention, and books 7 and 8 combine French
sources with another English poem, the STANZAIC
MORTE ARTHUR. Malory tends to use one source in
particular as a kind of template for the plan of each
book, a procedure that may indicate a serial borrowing of source manuscripts not inconsistent
with his famous claim that, while writing, he was a
“knyght presoner.”
In handling his sources Malory typically engaged in extensive abbreviation, suppressed moments of sentimentality and introspection, and
reduced passages of religious and doctrinal expression and accounts of magical phenomena; he enhanced accounts of martial endeavor and chivalric
values, and drew greater attention to the heroism
of certain characters—especially Launcelot. It is
generally agreed that books 7 and 8 present Malory
at his most innovative and challenging, and where
his prosody is most liberated from that of his
sources. The characterizations of Launcelot, GUENEVERE, ARTHUR, GAWAIN, and Mordred all achieve
unprecedented degrees of moral, emotional, and
expressive nuance, and Malory’s own extemporaneous comments show an intensity of personal engagement and cumulative thematic insight not
matched in earlier books. For example, in the
midst of his account of the cataclysm resulting
from the discovery of Guenevere’s adulterous relationship with Launcelot, Malory questions not
Guenevere, but the practices of his own age:
. . . ryght so faryth the love nowadayes, sone
hote, sone colde: thys ys no stabylyté. But the
olde love was nat so; for men and women
coude love togydirs seven yerys, and no lycoures (lecherous) lustis was betwyxte them—
and than was love trouthe and faythefulnes.
And so in lyke wyse was used such love in
Kynge Arthurs dayes. Wherefore I lykken love
nowadayes unto sommer and wynter: for, lyke
as the tone (one) ys colde and the othir ys hote,
so faryth love nowadayes. And therefore all ye
that be lovers, calle unto youre remembraunce
the monethe of May, lyke as ded (did) Quene
Gwenyver, for whom I make here a lytyll mencion, that whyle she lyved she was a trew lover,
and therefor she had a good ende.
Critical receptions of Malory were affected dramatically after 1934, when the Winchester Manuscript was discovered. Compared against
Caxton’s edition, the manuscript provides extra
autobiographical information, divides and decorates the text differently, and has thousands of
variant readings. Further complications arose in
1977 when it was discovered that the Winchester
Manuscript had been in Caxton’s printing shop
when he was preparing his own edition. Much
discussion has ensued about which aspects of
which version are more authentic, and, although
Winchester has emerged as the more authoritative, the high degree of forensic scrutiny now
being applied to Caxton’s text promises a finer
appreciation of Malory’s intentions. Also providing new contexts for a finer appreciation are studies of Malory’s life records, especially those which
suggest something about the reasons for Malory’s
periods of extensive imprisonment; theft, battery,
rape, and attempted murder are all alleged in the
records, and imprisonment for political affiliations or severe debt cannot be ruled out. That all
of these are important subjects in Le Morte
Darthur makes the prospects for further research
especially exciting.
Bibliography
Archibald, Elizabeth, and A. S. G. Edwards, eds. A
Companion to Malory. Woodbridge, U.K.: D. S.
Brewer, 1996.
Field, P. J. C. The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Malory.
Woodbridge, U.K.: D. S. Brewer, 1993.
Kato, Takako. Caxton’s Morte Darthur: The Printing
Process and the Authenticity of the Text. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 2002.
McCarthy, Terence. An Introduction to Malory: Reading the Morte Darthur. Woodbridge, U.K.: D. S.
Brewer, 2002.
Sutton, Anne F. “Malory in Newgate: A New Document,” The Library. Seventh Series, no. 1 (2000):
243–262.
Takamiya, Toshiyuki, and Derek Brewer, eds. Aspects
of Malory. Woodbridge, U.K.: D. S. Brewer, 1981.
Vinaver, Eugène, ed. The Works of Sir Thomas Malory. 3rd ed. Revised by P. J. C. Field. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.
Wheeler, Bonnie, Robert L. Kindrick, and Michael
Salda, eds. The Malory Debate: Essays on the Texts
of “Le Morte Darthur.” Woodbridge, U.K.: D. S.
Brewer, 2000.
Stephen H. A. Shepherd