Morte Arthure Research Articles

Emotional Pain and Self-Harm in the Prose Lancelot and the Alliterative Morte Arthure

Abstract Medieval romance often associates anger, sadness and distress with self-harm when these emotions reach a high level of intensity. In the Alliterative Morte Arthure, Arthur’s knights protest that the king is ‘blundering himself’ (that is, injuring himself) when mourning Gawain and feeling overwhelmed with sorrow. In the Prose Lancelot, Galehaut asks Lancelot, who has spent the night beset by heart-wrenching grief, why he is ‘killing himself’. In both works, the self is foregrounded in episodes that involve intense emotions and self-inflicted injury. The purpose of this essay is to investigate this recurring association of extreme emotions with self-harm in medieval romance.

“Our” Home Is “Here”: The Sense of a Homeland in Chaucer and Middle English Romance

ABSTRACT In his British Academy lecture “Chaucer and Englishness” (1998), and elsewhere, Derek Pearsall argued that there is no evidence for a coherent sense of nationhood in late medieval England. This article reconsiders the issue by focusing not on ideological constructions of nationhood, but on simpler, more ordinary experiences of “national feeling or a sense of national identity,” as reflected in the representation of England in Middle English romances, and the devices used by writers to create the sense of a homeland shared by narration and audience. Texts discussed include Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale, the alliterative Morte Arthure, Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, Guy of Warwick, the Middle English Song of Roland, and Sir Degrevant.

The Sense of Movement in the Stanzaic Morte Arthur and the Alliterative Morte Arthure

ABSTRACT The Alliterative Morte Arthure and Stanzaic Morte Arthur narrate violent interactions and intense emotions that are predominantly conveyed by means of kinesis. When a literary work refers to kinesis, i.e., gestures, movements, facial expressions, and Stanzaic physical interactions, readers tend to infer the kinaesthetic valence of such information. The term kinaesthesia refers to the sense of movement. More systematically than their medieval sources, the two Middle English poems emphasize the significance of kinesis and kinaesthesia. This article supports this claim by analysing kinesic tropes of emotions, and action verbs referring to detailed dynamic movements. It also highlights the importance of kinesis in conceptions of identity and faciality, showing that facial gestures are more relevant in the two poems than facial features.

The King, the Giant, and Time: Temporality in the Encounter at Mont Saint Michel in the Alliterative Morte Arthure

The ongoing now of the encounter with the Giant in the Alliterative Morte Arthure creates a convergence in which Arthur is perhaps not the 'once and future king,' but an 'all-at-once and futureless king.' (RTO)

Female Desire in Chaucer’s “Legend of Good Women” and Middle English Romance by Lucy M. Allen-Goss

Reviewed by: Female Desire in Chaucer’s “Legend of Good Women” and Middle English Romance by Lucy M. Allen-Goss Michelle M. Sauer Lucy M. Allen-Goss. Female Desire in Chaucer’s “Legend of Good Women” and Middle English Romance. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2020. Pp. ix, 225. $99.00 cloth; $24.99 e-book. Lucy M. Allen-Goss has given us a book that we need. Of course, there are a great many books out there on Chaucer, but there are few that concentrate on The Legend of Good Women, and fewer still that focus exclusively on female desire. Allen-Goss begins with an author’s note (viii–ix) that is imperative to her project: in it, she explains why she has avoided using the word “queer.” Whether or not we personally agree with her decision, the careful way in which she has outlined her choice, particularly how it connects with her understanding of Alain de Lille, is appreciated. Similarly, her introduction judiciously defines “female desire,” which is the central idea of her book and thus all the more important to be treated respectfully and completely. Early on, she notes, “As will be clear, the spectrum of female embodied desires I discuss is, because those desires are defined in the negative as not orientated towards masculinity, both wide and difficult to visualize” (6). In other words, to explore female desires adequately, masculinity must also be examined critically. And she does. The straightforward thesis of the entire work is thus: “I argue that, in the late fourteenth century, Chaucer inaugurates an interrogation of the available modes of representing women’s emotions, desires and aversions, carried out primarily through his most radically disruptive poem, the Legend of Good Women” (7). Although I am unsure the Legend is the most radical of all Chaucerian texts, Allen-Goss is ultimately very convincing in her position, and I finished the book even more convinced that Chaucer’s text is an essential tool in understanding the development of femininity, female desire, and medieval feminisms. Her applications to other romances demonstrate how this view works outside a Chaucerian framework. Chapter 1 focuses on the “Legend of Philomela.” It is a good place to start, setting up Allen-Goss’s basic premises well, since Philomela is raped, mutilated, and silenced, seemingly leaving no space for female desire. Allen-Goss instead argues that Chaucer’s “mutilation” of the text—he pieces together multiple sources and leaves off the traditional ending of the tale—allows for the possibility of a recuperative female voice. The chapter [End Page 281] is argued provocatively and adeptly and is ultimately quite convincing. Perhaps most intriguing is the section on Philomela’s prosthetic voice, accomplished through Chaucer’s rewriting of classical texts to eliminate blood (and gore), suggesting that “Chaucer’s lacuna, his omission of the lurid imagery of Philomela’s flesh and bloody tongue, makes visible the tensions within the discourses available for representation of violated female sexuality, showing how easily female aversion to male sexual violence can be made to look like transgressive female desire punished” (48). Eventually, she suggests that the entirety of the Legend reflects Philomela’s voice, thus setting up a “feminine hermeneutic that disrupts the rhythm of traditional narrative and poetics” (60). From here, Chapter 2 switches gear and examines the Alliterative Morte Arthure, which sets the pattern for the rest of the book in alternating Chaucer with other romances. Allen-Goss says that, like Philomela, the Alliterative Morte is a “displaced representation of silenced female suffering [that] brings coherence to seemingly dissonant, fragmented, repetitive and structurally disarticulated aspects of the poem” (62). But more than that, she goes on to suggest that in the Morte, female desire is specifically linked to male sodomy. Sorting through the incident where the giant rapes Arthur’s kinswoman, and various penile images (e.g., Arthur thrusting his lance through Mordred’s anus), the conclusion is that while there is sodomitic energy and possible queerness, the poem also engages with the potential for expressing female desires even as it resists actual female characters. Chapters 3 and 4 are similarly paired, and address first the “Legend of Hipsiphyle and Medea...

Memories of War: Retracting the Interpretive Tradition of the Alliterative Morte Arthure

Since William Matthews published what remains to date the only monograph about the Alliterative Morte Arthure, literary critics have largely elaborated upon—rather than questioned or corrected—the interpretive tradition he established. Modern pacifist ideals continue to shape scholarly work on this poem, so the dominant interpretation remains that the text critiques Arthur and war. We argue, in contrast, for a retraction of this tradition based on textual and historical details that consistently validate Arthur as a great conqueror-king who is preeminent among the Nine Worthies.

Re-evaluating the Stanzaic Morte Arthur: Content and Contexts

Re-evaluating the Stanzaic Morte Arthur:Content and Contexts Fiona Tolhurst (bio) and K.S. Whetter (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution the final folio of le morte arthur, showing the red coloring of opening initials in, and the explicit to, the poem: london, british library, ms harley 2252, fol. 133v. ©the british library board, harley 2252, fol. 133v. [End Page 3] The Middle English Arthurian poem Le Morte Arthur survives in a single manuscript—the commonplace book London, British Library, MS Harley 2252—where it occupies folios 86 recto to 133 verso. Although copied by two otherwise unknown scribes (A and B), the poem is clearly titled on its final folio as Le Morte Arthur. Neither the folios the poem occupies nor the manuscript as a whole is much decorated, although throughout the manuscript there is some slight red coloring of some letters: in the case of Le Morte Arthur, this red staining begins during Launcelot and Gaynour's final meeting, where, from folios 130 verso to 133 verso, the otherwise brownish-black initials of the opening word or two of each line get colored (at times almost highlighted) with red (see Figure 1, page 3). This paper miscellany, sometimes referred to as 'John Colyns' Boke' because of the ownership inscriptions by a London merchant on folios 1 verso, 133 verso (the final folio of the poem), and 166 recto, dates to the early sixteenth century; the booklets containing Le Morte Arthur and Ipomydon B, however, are older.1 Le Morte Arthur is in Midlands dialect, but its author and exact provenance are unknown. In order better to distinguish this poem from the Lincoln Thornton manuscript's (Alliterative) Morte Arthure and Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur, most modern scholars use Le Morte Arthur's verse form as a convenient means of identifying it, hence its commonly known title 'Stanzaic (with or without capitals or italics) Morte Arthur.' One folio from roughly the middle of the plot, between extant folios 102 and 103 and amounting to perhaps ninety-odd lines but comprising lines 1182–1317 in the lineation of all modern editions, has been lost.2 Based on the poem's diction and dialect, the manuscript's watermarks, and the scribes' handwriting, modern scholars date the poem to the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, generally circa 1400, though earlier dates are sometimes proposed.3 The Stanzaic Morte Arthur is a translation, abbreviation, and close adaptation of the thirteenth-century French prose romance La Mort le roi Artu, the final section of the large prose narrative known as the Vulgate Cycle or Lancelot-Graal Cycle (circa 1215–30).4 Because of the Stanzaic-poet's [End Page 4] choice of source, this poem is also the first English text to give any details of—or credence to—the love affair of Lancelot and Guenevere, although in it the queen is called 'Gaynour.' Helen Cooper argues that the Stanzaic Morte was not widely read in its day, and that the story of Launcelot and Gaynour's adultery would have been considered by the few English readers who did know it to be a French fable.5 Qualifying this claim is Elizabeth Archibald, who makes a convincing case for the Lancelot-Guenevere story being reasonably well accepted by at least some English readers.6 We agree with Archibald, for much of the effect of the Stanzaic Morte depends upon the audience's familiarity with at least some aspects of the love affair as it appears in the French tradition. As she rightly insists, the 'poem would surely have been incomprehensible to an audience who did not already know the story of their love'; moreover, the poem 'must have had some success, for the one extant copy was produced commercially in booklet form before it was bound into [the] larger collection (British Library, Harley 2252).'7 In addition, the English poet makes his own powerful and original contribution to the Lancelot-Guenevere story by creating the scene of the lovers' emotional final meeting, a scene Malory borrowed and expanded upon—thereby making it well known to English audiences from perhaps the 1470s, when Malory's Arthuriad could have...

Romance and History: Imagining Time from the Medieval to the Early Modern Period ed. by Jon Whitman

Reviewed by: Romance and History: Imagining Time from the Medieval to the Early Modern Period ed. by Jon Whitman Andrew James Johnston jon whitman, ed., Romance and History: Imagining Time from the Medieval to the Early Modern Period. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 92. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. xiv, 317. isbn: 978–1–107–04278–0. $55.76. Romance and History assembles a collection of essays on the relations between romance—both medieval and early modern—and history. The chapters are arranged according to subject matter and chronological order, with the 'Matter of Rome' followed by the 'Matter of Britain,' succeeded by the 'Matter of France and Italy,' and finally by sixteenth-century developments, thereby suggesting a vibrant cross-pollination between these different fields as European romance develops forms of sophisticated self-referentiality and becomes increasingly concerned with its own status vis-à-vis literary theory. In his thoughtful introduction, Jon Whitman takes his cue from Erich Auerbach's indictment of romance as lacking historical consciousness and argues in favor of a comprehensive reappraisal of romance's involvement with history. Christopher Baswell (chapter two) begins the collection proper with a discussion of how medieval romances dealing with themes from antiquity—the Roman d'Énéas, the Roman de Thèbes, the Roman de Troie, the Roman d'Alexandre, and the Roman de Toute Chevalerie—seek to contain history within and through complex forms of material artifacts such as gates, walls, and elaborate tombs. The third chapter by Catherine Croizy-Naquet compares two thirteenth-century historical prose narratives, the Faits des Romains and the Roman de Troie en prose, with respect to their strategies of rhetorically and poetically conceptualizing history. While the Faits heavily borrows devices from romance, the Roman reduces the romance quality of its subject matter, seeking to minimize the literariness of the narrative. Next, Robert W. Hanning studies the importance of the young men in medieval romance, and in the fifth chapter, Adrian Stevens traces specifically Angevin resonances in Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan and Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival. Friedrich Wolfzettel's contribution then offers an interesting hypothesis on the fourteenth-century romance of Perceforest. Situated in pre-Arthurian Britain, Perceforest self-consciously turns its back on the grail motif and its ideological consequences for the 'Matter of Britain,' establishing instead a notion of history that combines an almost proto-humanist enlightenment with a foreshadowing of the advent of Christianity. In the chapter that follows, Edward Donald Kennedy scrutinizes ethical and ideological ambivalence in the Prose Brut, Hardyng's Chronicle, and the Alliterative Morte Arthure. Chapter eight sees Helen Cooper tease out the sophistication of Malory's response to England's political landscape during the Wars of the Roses. By analytically exploring the legal and ethical dilemmas and contradictions of his fictional Arthurian society, Cooper [End Page 82] argues, Malory constructs something akin to a political tragedy of nation-building. In chapter nine, Jean-Pierre Martin discusses the political aims of twelfth-century France's great aristocratic families as reflected in the elaborate genealogies presented in the 'Matter of France' texts, and Riccardo Buscagli's contribution betrays a similar thrust as it shows how the figure of Ruggiero is invented to buttress the Este family's claim to power. The eleventh chapter contains Marco Praloran's investigation into the development of entrelacement techniques in early modern European romance and how this impinges not only on the intelligibility of plot structures but also on the construction of temporalities. Chapter twelve, by Daniel Javitch, is interested in the ways in which Boiardo, Ariosto, and, especially, Tasso poetically handle and simultaneously theorize the marvellous in the service of claiming historical dignity for their romances. David Quint then enters into a similar discussion as he alerts us to the Gerusalemme's paradoxical juxtaposition of romance material and historical topicality, as embodied, for instance, in the complexities surrounding the depiction of Armida's chariot. Gordon Teskey examines the Faerie Queene's tensions between allegory and history, and, finally, in the single article that shows an interest in issues of gender and of cultural hybridity, Marina S. Brownlee investigates late medieval and early modern examples of Spanish romance—Pedro del Corral's...

Monster Relics: The Giant, the Archangel, and Mont-Saint-Michel in the Alliterative Morte Arthure

The history of Mont-St-Michel provides context for the witty comparisons made between the Giant of Mont-St-Michel and Saint Michael himself in lines 841–1230 of the Alliterative Morte Arthure. Stories of anxiety over the absence of Saint Michael’s bodily relics inform the episode’s humor and suggest a way in which a monster’s corpse might also be a relic.

King Arhtur as a tyrant in The Alliterative morte Arthure

King Arthur, the hero of the most popular legend in medieval Europe, is first depicted in English literature in the early 12th-century Latin pseudo-historical chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Wace translated Geoffrey's Historia into French and entitled it Roman de Brut, while Layamon translated Wace into Middle English and named it Brut. In Geoffrey's chronicle Arthur is portrayed as a ruler and politician. In Wace he assumes features of a courtier, while in Layamon he resembles Old English heroic kings. However, in The Alliterative Morte Arthure, whose sources are the works of Geoffrey, Wace and Layamon, Arthur undergoes significant deterioration from a rightful defender of his empire to a bloodthirsty tyrant consumed by pride. Taking into account Larry Benson's theoretical standpoint on The Alliterative Morte Arthure as a medieval tragedy, this paper analyses Arthur's fall through examples of his being a lavish, hot-hearted, rash and insatiable conqueror unconcerned with the suffering of the inhabitants of his invaded territories. It argues that only in his dying speech does Arthur return to himself and his roots - the versions of Arthur from Geoffrey's, Wace's and Lyamon's dynastic chronicles.

Conquering the Reign of Femeny: Gender and Genre in Chaucer’s Romance by Angela Jane Weisl

REVIEWS naries, grammar texts, ancillary texts and translations, and "Yearly Bibliographies and Other Bibliographical Listings. " Finally, the editor's superb glossary provides relevant information "for every form of every word" (p.217) in Pearl. Such data is anchored further by the "literal meanings [ofwords}, line numbers, grammatical elements, and etymological derivatives [OED, MED}" (p.xi). In general, Vantuono succeeds admirably in his editorial purposes, for he has crafted a book suitable for students and scholars alike.Such an edition, then, both illuminates Pearl's rich vision world and comple­ ments Vantuono's earlier work, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Dual-Language Version (1991). ROBERT J.BLANCH Northeastern University ANGELA JANE WEISL.Conquering the Reign ofFemeny: Gender and Genre in Chaucer's Romance. Chaucer Studies, vol. 22. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1995.Pp.ix, 133.$53.0 0. This provocative little volume begins with an image from ltalo Cal­ vino's Invisible Cities in which several men simultaneously dream of a long-haired naked woman vanishing through an unknown city into the darkness.Failing to locate the city, they construct one of their own, with mazes to trap the vision should she reappear.This image, Angela Jane Weisl tells us, embodies the romance genre in that its essential content of male desire, the action of pursuing the woman, and the method ofexecution through entrapping labyrinths recapitulate the ro­ mance.It is a haunting metaphor. Insights in the twenty-page introduction, which this reader found more evocative than the somewhat repetitive readings of four individ­ ual romances, are quite creative.Weisl's thesis is that Chaucer pushes "boundaries (the glass ceiling that defines roles, positions, and possi­ bilities}, testing the genre's limits ...to show both its confines and its potential" (p.3).Since romance defines the nature and behavior ofhero­ ines (who cannot be ugly Loathly Ladies, self-motivated, independent young Alisons, or gregariously assertive old Alisons), it contains them. Feminine confinement, such as that of the coerced, unwilling Emelye, 335 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER then, symbolizes the genre. In upsetting her gendered role, Criseyde flaunts tradition, upsetting both the genre and her tale, which can no longer support a standard romance ending. Although these ideas seem intriguing, many romances defy the "confined-woman" schema-Parzival, Amis andAmiloun (with one very dominant Belisaunt and another domineering wife), Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (whose two women wield much power), and the allitera­ tive Morte Arthure (with no primary woman) come to mind.Eventually Weisl acknowledges exceptions, that "many poems that are gener­ ally ...lays or romances are not really about romantic love at all" (p.8), seemingly contradicting herself. Classifying is hazardous, as Susan Crane has noted, but perhaps limiting the thesis to certain types of ro­ mances might have ameliorated the problem.Several evocative issues tease us, but remain unclarified.How, for example, is Boccaccio a source for Chaucer's methodology as much as for plot? How do Chaucer's ro­ mances, transformed into self-referential narratives, tell us as much about narrative as they do about love? Some claims seem controversial or contradictory.For example, Weisl states, "Chaucer, strikingly, can­ not end two of his romances" (p. 5), discounting those who insist The Squire's Tale and Tale ofSir Thopas are in fact ended precisely at the right, intended moment.Since some romances contain didactic elements, the author posits a reverse mimesis-life imitating art.But from Horace or before, the ends of poetry have always been to teach and entertain, so how does romance differ? Certain statements appear self-evident or un­ remarkable, such as Chaucer's attitude to romance: "The genre is prob­ lematic for him; he continually challenges, expands, and tests the lim­ its of the romance by shifting its contexts and altering its conventions" (p.2).Does his policy differ for other genres, equally manipulated for the new creative spark they elicit? Is not his genius that he regularly transgresses, defies boundaries, violates generic expectations, and to successful, not deconstructive, ends? Weisl believes that although women are necessary to the genre, their space and roles are restricted.Yet she admits: "The woman's role can be greater than [inspiring and perfecting...

Reading Religion: Chivalry in the AlliterativeMorte Arthureas an Instance of Cultural Negotiation

Examining chivalry as it is represented in the Alliterative Morte Arthure, I set out to show how literature often functions as a cultural negotiating ground upon which one can ask the question: what is religion and how does it function within society?

Arthur’s Dinner; Or, Robert Thornton Goes Shopping

By situating the first feast scene of the Lincoln Thornton manuscript’s Alliterative Morte Arthure in its local and historical contexts, this article argues for a reassessment of current critical assumptions concerning attitudes towards the ‘Oryent’ and supposedly ‘exotic’ material culture in late medieval England.

‘Ʒit þat traytour alls tite teris lete he fall’: Arthur, Mordred, and Tragedy in the Alliterative Morte Arthure

In the Brut tradition, the narrative of King Arthur’s last campaign represents the dying king heroically. However, the late medieval Alliterative Morte Arthure differs, from Laʒamon’s Brut in particular, by connecting Arthur’s hyper-masculinity to the collapse of his court.

The Sword and the Scepter: Mordred, Arthur, and the Dual Roles of Kingship in the Alliterative Morte Arthure

The poet of the Alliterative Morte Arthure complicates the traditional depiction of Mordred-as-traitor in order to show how both Mordred and Arthur struggle to negotiate the dual roles of kings publicly emblematized on coins, seals, and regalia—king-as-warrior and king-as-governor.

Robert Thornton and His Books: Essays on the Lincoln and London Thornton Manuscripts ed. by Susanna Fein and Michael Johnston (review)

SUSANNA FEIN AND MICHAEL JOHNSTON, eds., Robert Thornton and His Books: Essays on the Lincoln and London Thornton Manuscripts. Woodbridge, Suffolk and Rochester, New York: York Medieval Press, 2014. Pp. 325. isbn: 978-1-90315-351-2. $99.A glance at the title of this volume might bring one to question what advantage might be gained from a collection so intensely focused on a single Yorkshire scribe who produced only two books, given that London has already been established to be the dominant culture of late medieval England's professional book trade. Yet it is in Thornton's very idiosyncrasy and his failure to 'fit any of the larger patterns in which most historians of English book production have been interested' (2), Michael Johnston argues, that his two books-Lincoln, Cathedral Library MS 91 and London, British Library MS Add. 31,042-matter.Robert Thornton and His Books is the first book in over twenty-five years to focus exclusively on Robert Thornton (c.1397-c.1465), the amateur scribe and compiler whose extraordinary books-the second-most substantial collection of Middle English romances-preserve an extraordinary quantity of literature which may well otherwise have been lost to oblivion, including the Alliterative Morte Arthure. This long-overdue collection brings together for the first time a fully realized account of Thornton's activity and its relationship to fifteenth-century English book production, Yorkshire social and literary networks, and lay vernacular devotional and reading habits.This volume serves the dual purpose of acting as a rallying point for current scholars and as a staging ground for future scholarly work by marrying the interests of codicological and paleographical analysis with literary criticism. Its first three articles address the manuscripts' physical characteristics. Susanna Fein's contribution offers a comprehensive account of the contents of Thornton's manuscripts that includes the location of scribal signatures, references to other manuscript witnesses, and the citation of scholarly editions. George Keiser follows this with an extended and lively review of Thornton scholarship, peppered throughout with new insights into his milieu, life, scribal practice, and texts. In addition to its comprehensive catalogue of the manuscripts' structure and decoration, Joel Fredell's article situates Thornton's books in their fifteenth-century Yorkshire context, using the decorative features of the manuscripts to complicate our assumptions that Thornton's copying and compilation processes may be reduced to matters of convenience, and arguing that Thornton 'imposed his own organization' on them (120).No collection discussing Thornton would be complete without mentioning its most famous text, the Alliterative Morte Arthure. This volume performs admirably on these grounds. In their provocative reassessment of the language of the Morte, Ralph Hanna and Thorlac Turville-Petre argue persuasively for the need to produce a new edition-one that incorporates the evidence from both the Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English and from Malory, who 'had access to a text of the poem that was at some points more accurate and more complete than Thornton's' (141). …

Translating Troy: Provincial Politics in Alliterative Romance by Alex Mueller (review)

Reviewed by: Translating Troy: Provincial Politics in Alliterative Romance by Alex Mueller Kevin J. Harty Mueller, Alex, Translating Troy: Provincial Politics in Alliterative Romance (Interventions: New Studies in Medieval Culture), Columbus, Ohio State University Press, 2013; cloth; pp. 253; R.R.P. US$69.95; ISBN 9780814212219. This original, well-written, and well-argued study is the latest to challenge the monolithic view – popular when I was in graduate studies in the 1970s – of the so-called ‘Middle English Alliterative Revival’. Alex Mueller first grounds his study, which is as much political as it is literary, in a thoughtful and original rereading of Guido delle Colonne’s Historia Destructionis Troiae, which he argues is the foundational text for an alternate reading of the import of Troy and its fall to medieval England’s image of itself. While for Chaucer and his courtly contemporaries, the fall of Troy established the foundation for their own civilisation – England was the New Troy – the alliterative writers expressed marked scepticism about such received wisdom, and resisted any linear view of history that saw their country’s direct descent from fallen Troy and its glorious successor, imperial Rome, as something in which to glory. If anything, the alliterative writers, taking their cue from Guido, offered a provincial critique of the wisdom behind such courtly claims to an imperial legacy for England. Medieval England knew Guido’s text through the alliterative Destruction of Troy, which would, in turn, prove the source for the ways in which the authors of other alliterative poems would read the destruction of Troy; that reading finds not a glorious genealogy upon which to expand but a moral lesson warning against usurpation, siege, and broken vows. Mueller applies this general reconsideration of the glory that was not Troy to specific poems that reflect the generic possibilities embraced by English alliterative romance: John Clerk’s Destruction of Troy, The Siege of Jerusalem, the alliterative Morte Arthure, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Clerk, positioning himself as an authority intent upon telling the whole story of the fall of Troy, challenges his readers, initially predisposed as they are to revel in the alleged glories of their Trojan ancestry, to question the true value of such a chequered legacy. The Siege of Jerusalem advances the Trojan narrative to its incorporation as the founding myth of the Roman Empire. [End Page 340] Building upon the accepted critique of the poem for its anti-Semitism, Mueller also argues that the notable examples of anti-Semitism within the poem show the poet’s disgust with the cruelty of Rome, and elicit sympathy for the plight of the Jews under the harsh rule of their imperial conquerors. The alliterative Morte Arthure establishes King Arthur as the continuation of the so-called glory that was Rome. But the portrait that the poet offers of Arthur is complex. Juxtaposing signs of empire with scenes of cruelty, the poet sees in Arthur’s rise further evidence of the inseparability of imperial authority and the death of the innocent. Mueller concludes his examination of alliterative texts by focusing on the Trojan frame in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The central Arthurian tale of the testing of Camelot, Mueller argues, is ultimately disconnected from that frame and obscures the images of death, destruction, and conquest that the frame summons up. In sum, Mueller argues that the provincial alliterative romances offer a markedly different and totally pessimistic view of England’s Trojan legacy. That view stands in sharp contrast to, say, that of Chaucer in Troilus and Criseyde, which is indifferent to Trojan history because it is more concerned with courtly love than with military history. Just as the alliterative poets asked their readers to re-engage with their concept of the role Troy played in their history, so Mueller asks us similarly to re-engage with our expected assumptions about the poems that he discusses. In doing so, Mueller has given us an important study that should go a long way toward encouraging further studies and reassessments of these always challenging (in several senses of the word) literary texts. Kevin J. Harty La Salle University Copyright © 2015 Kevin J. Harty

Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory (review)

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...

Introduction

Introduction

Eminent Arthurian: P.J.C. Field

Eminent Arthurian: P.J.C. Field K.S. Whetter All Malory scholars, and a good many Arthurian scholars in general, are familiar with the work of Professor P.J.C. Field. Peter is a former President of the International Arthurian Society, former host of a successful Society congress, winner of the North American Branch’s Lacy Award and, most significantly, author of an impressive array of publications exploring various aspects of many different Arthurian (and non-Arthurian) texts and topics. He is certainly an eminent Arthurian. The photograph that accompanies my tribute to Peter was taken at the formal launch of his edition of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, a launch that took place at the September 2013 meeting of the British Branch of the International Arthurian Society, by happy coincidence held at Bangor University, where Peter has made his home for the past fifty years.1 The appearance of this much-anticipated edition is an appropriate occasion to reflect upon Peter’s many accomplishments and his deserved eminence, not just in terms of his scholarly achievements, but also in the regard and affection of those who know him, worldwide. Peter has published interesting and convincing studies of (inter alia) Nennius, Arthur’s battles, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the alliterative Morte Arthure, Chaucer, and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell. Obviously, however, it is Peter’s work on Malory and the text of the Morte which has won him the most renown. Many of Peter’s textual studies were revised and published together in his Malory: Texts and Sources, but other Malorian highlights include his Romance and Chronicle, a well-regarded monograph on Malory’s prose style, an edition of Tales VII and VIII of the Morte published initially in 1977, the revision of Vinaver’s three-volume critical edition, and the authoritative biography, The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Malory.2 It is a testament to Peter’s integrity that he revised Vinaver’s text in accordance with Vinaver’s principles; that is, he confined himself to correcting manifest errors and updating the notes but refrained from modifying the text or apparatus in any of the substantial ways Peter’s own scholarship had revealed should be done. Thus for many years Malory scholars could glean Peter’s textual-critical conclusions from his own publications, but it is only now, with [End Page 5] the much-anticipated complete edition of the Morte before us, that the scholarly community can at last see the text as Peter reconstructs it. In my opinion, that reconstruction is marvelous. For one thing, the edition itself is very attractive, including the endpapers with the arms of King Arthur juxtaposed against those of Thomas Malory. For another, we have the entire text in one very clean volume, with none of Vinaver’s various brackets detracting from Malory’s words. Finally and most substantially, there is the text itself. Peter has not been shy of modifying readings in either Winchester or Caxton; this is especially so in the contentious Roman War section. Not all textual scholars will agree with such emendation, just as not all scholars agree that the Newbold Revel Malory penned the Morte Darthur; but anyone who disputes the authorship question must rebut the considerable and convincing evidence marshalled by Peter. Likewise, there are also those who still feel that the Caxton Morte Darthur is at least as valid as the text contained in the Winchester manuscript—but anyone who upholds this view must deal with the collective weight of Works, Texts and Sources, and Peter’s introduction to the new edition. The apparatus and commentary are equally authoritative, detailing significant variant readings or scribal corrections, and—to take but one example—managing to offer a clear path through, and some new insights about, the critical debate regarding possible sources for the ‘Healing of Sir Urry.’ Peter’s text of the Click for larger view View full resolution P.J.C. Field with his New Edition of Malory. Photograph Courtesy of Samantha Rayner. [End Page 6] Morte is convincing, even Malorian, and I believe it will rightfully become the standard edition for scholars now and long into the...