Product Description

This study explores how Malory's "Morte D'Arthur" responds to available literary vernacular Arthurian traditions, which the French defined as theoretical in impulse, the English as performative and experimental. Negotiating these influences, Malory transforms constructions of masculine heroism, especially in the presentation of Launcelot, and exposes the tensions and disillusions of the Arthurian project. The "Morte D'Arthur" conveys a desire for integrity in narrative and subject-matter, but at the same time tests literary conceptualizations of history, nationalism, gender and self-hood, and considers the failures of social and legal institutionalizations of violence, in a critique of literary form and of social order.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1466731 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Review
"This is a Malory for the twenty-first century. Catherine Batt speaks with a new and individual voice, locating the "Morte Darthur" at the interstices of French and English Arthurian traditions. She is a rare and enviable combination: someone who is thoroughly at ease with late-medieval literature in two languages, and whose readings are sprightly, sophisticated and intellectually challenging. In "Remaking Arthurian Tradition" she remakes Malory's "Morte Darthur" for us." --Felicity Riddy, University of York, UK

About the Author
CATHERINE BATT is a Lecturer in the School of English, University of Leeds. She has articles on Clemence of Barking, the Gawain-Poet, Malory, Caxton, and V.S. Naipaul, and is editor of Essays on Thomas Hoccleve.