Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory Alan Lupack Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur. Ed. p.j.c. field. 2 vols. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2013. isbn: 978–1–84384–314–6. $340. The result of decades of study of Malory and his work, P.J.C. Field’s edition of Le Morte Darthur is clearly one of the major events in the long history of Malory scholarship. Rejecting both Vinaver’s ‘best text’ theory and Spisak’s assumption that Caxton’s copy-text was revised by Malory himself, Field bases the text of his new edition of Le Morte Darthur on the Winchester manuscript (‘the default text when the evidence does not show any other reading to be more probable’) but also considers three other witnesses: Caxton’s 1485 edition, Wynkyn de Worde’s 1498 edition (‘a passage equivalent to an entire sheet’ of which was set directly from Caxton’s copy-text), and ‘Malory’s sources collectively’ to arrive at ‘what Malory intended to write’ (I: xi-xviii). While the attempt to capture the author’s intention may seem at odds with modern theory and editorial practice, Field’s intimate and detailed knowledge of Malory’s text, of the differences among the various witnesses, and of the large body of criticism relating to the Morte make this approach seem, in his rendering, not only reasonable and sound but perhaps the optimal way to produce the best text of the Morte. One of the virtues of the new edition is its readability. It has big enough type to be easily readable, for which the publisher is to be commended. (This does, however, make for a large and expensive two-volume set; one hopes an affordable teaching edition will follow.) The text volume is also free of editorial apparatus. It contains only an introduction and then a clean and unencumbered text. Variant readings are recorded in the second volume (including ‘Apparatus, Commentary, Glossary and Index of Names’) rather than in the text volume—in contrast to Vinaver’s three-volume edition, wherein they are recorded on the bottom of the page. Emendations are not indicated by brackets or by any other means. So, for example, in the well-known passage in which Lancelot’s slaying of Gareth and Gaheris is reported, where Vinaver’s text reads ‘Launcelot saw them [nat],’ Field, recognizing that Caxton’s inclusion of the ‘nat’ is obviously the correct reading, omits the brackets and presents the text that he has determined Malory intended (885.9–10). Of course, Field indicates in the ‘Apparatus and Commentary’ in volume 2 that Caxton includes the ‘nat’ and that Caxton’s reading is supported by one of Malory’s sources, the Mort Artu. In [End Page 131] another instance of emendation explained in the notes but not marked in the text, Field sensibly emends to ‘Elyot’ (499.10) the name of the harper given as ‘Elyas’ in Winchester and Caxton, even though it was given as ‘Elyot’ earlier. And he provides several reasons why this emendation makes sense. A similar rejection of editorial apparatus in the text volume can be seen in the tale of Arthur and Lucius, where Field does not mark the lines that are taken directly from the Alliterative Morte Arthure, as Vinaver does. As useful as those markings are in defining the relationship between Malory’s tale and its source (so useful that someone studying that relationship would almost certainly refer to Vinaver’s edition), the absence of those guides helps to focus attention on the text itself. Also different from what is found in Vinaver’s edition are some of the names given to sections within the eight books of the Morte—actually nine books, though still eight tales, in Field’s edition since, following the manuscript’s division of the Book of Tristram into a ‘First Book’ and a ‘Second Book,’ Field divides the tale of Tristram into two parts. Illustrative of those changes and of how editorial decisions can suggest interpretation are the sections at the end of the Second Book of Tristram. Vinaver’s ‘Launcelot and Elaine’ and ‘Conclusion’ become, in Field’s edition, ‘The Begetting of Galahad’ and...