Le Morte D'Arthur

Le Morte D'Arthur. The Death of Arthur. The canonical version of the Matter of Britain for... er, British-speakers. :p

I've been reading this book from a new "collectible edition" released by Barnes & Noble. Now normally I really like classics, but I'm not sure what to make of this book. It's not the fact that it's Middle English (with modernized spelling as in my copy, it's no harder than Shakespeare). No, it's the plot.

For those who haven't read it, Sir Thomas Malory's "Morte" is a prose romance of more than 500 chapters (averaging two pages), grouped into 8 or 21 books. For those who have read it... what should I be getting out of this? I feel like I'm missing the unity or literary merit in all the sprawling episodes.

Right now I'm a bit more than halfway through, deep in the tale of Sir Tristram, and here are some thoughts on particular tales:

• The book starts the day Arthur was conceived, thanks to Merlin's trick of making Uther Pendragon look like Igraine's husband. Malory left out the wizard's Anti-Antichrist backstory from the Old French "Merlin". In this version, Merlin's actions mainly consist of tricking people and declaring who the bestest knights will be (what a fanboy).
• Remember that time in the fifth century that Rome was conquered by British knights, even though their army had some giants? That's the plot of the second tale. If I remember correctly, Arthur got as far as Gaul in Geoffrey of Monmouth's version before Mordred betrayed him. Here the betrayal has been separated from the Roman war by the adventures of Lancelot, of Tristram, and the Grail Quest, so nothing back home stands in Arthur's way. Making Arthur a Roman Emperor seems a bizarre step that would have tested even an educated 15th century person's suspension of disbelief.
• It's hilarious how long King Arthur manages to live with Guinevere without catching onto her adultery with Lancelot. This goes on so long and seems to become such common knowledge that one Lady Elaine disguises herself as Queen G to have sex with him, gives birth to Galahad, Galahad grows up, achieves the Grail, and dies before Arthur finds out.
• The famous parts of the Tristram and Isolde, up to and including him leaving the other woman named Isolde he married, take up a few dozen chapters. Then it just goes on and on... I think the first memorable addition is when Isolde's husband King Mark leaves Cornwall for England and everyone tells him what a horrible king and knight he is for standing in Tristram's way. The other characters make him the Butt Monkey, doing things like sending Arthur's jester to joust him and trolling him by writing an intentionally bad lay about him.

It does amuse me that the old stories seem to actually play far less tropes straight than you'd expect them. Unbuilt Trope seems to be prevalent

Are you thinking about tropes in this book specifically?

I'd agree that Unbuilt Trope is common here. For example, in the Tale of Sir Gareth, Lyonette is what would now be called a Tsundere. However, her abuse-cum-friendship for Gareth is just that: change. The essential Tsundere element of being in love with him is absent. Funny thing, Alfred Lord Tennyson felt that was something he needed to fix in his Idylls!

crickets chirp

Has nobody else read this?

edited 24th Jul '15 6:02:11 PM by Library-Cat

Malory's not exactly commonplace reading these days.

The main difficulty is the episodic nature of the stories - and perhaps that's how they were intended to be read, as episodes rather than as one connected novel (the novel, as such, had not even been invented yet). The editions based on Vinaver and the Winchester MS refer to it as the "Works" of Malory - it seems to have been Caxton's (the printer's) idea to hang the Morte d'Arthur title on it.

Even the author is a bit of a mystery - he was probably the Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel who seems to have lost his moral compass in the maelstrom of the Wars of the Roses and to have compiled a quite impressive rap sheet of crimes, spending more than a little time in prison. But the cognitive dissonance involved in this identification has caused some scholars to put forth other candidates. Thomas Malory of Papworth St. Agnes was strongly favored at one time but fails both of the primary requirements: he was probably never knighted, and there is no evidence he was ever actually imprisoned. Thomas Malory of Hutton Conyers, in Yorkshire, is at best a vague and shadowy figure who might or might not qualify, if only we knew more about him. (The main point in his favor, and it's not a strong one, is the ease the author had in reading and understanding the North Country dialect in which some of the key sources were written. But even today there are people who have an exceptionally good "eye" for dialect writing, and the author may simply have had this talent in spades.)

edited 1st Nov '15 2:23:37 PM by Maven

I've wanted to read this but it seems like a confusing story.

I feel like The Once and Future King series might be a more easily digested story for me.

Once and Future King is great, and is the only single-author account of Arthurian legends that I've read. (I've downloaded Le Morte d'Arthur from Project Gutenberg but haven't gotten more than a couple chapters into it.)

I'd like to read Mallory to get a sense of the myths in an older form. Once and Future King isn't really the traditional Arthurian mythos; it has a lot of anachronism and references to the Second World War, and a bunch of silliness with Sir Pellinore et al.

edited 5th Nov '15 3:42:08 PM by Galadriel

Le Morte D'Arthur is essentially the ultimate example of Canon Welding, taking absolutely every piece of Arthurian lore that Malory could find and trying to put them together into a single, cohesive continuity.

As such, it's not really known for being a well-told story, but for the fact that, if there's a piece of Arthuriana you're interested in, it's probably in there somewhere.