Malory's 'Morte D'Arthur': Remaking Arthurian Tradition [Hardcover]

Catherine Batt (Author)

Book Description

Series: New Middle Ages | Publication Date: May 3, 2002

This study innovatively explores how Malory’s Morte Darthur responds to available literary vernacular Arthurian traditions—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 poignantly conveys a desire for integrity in narrative and subject-matter, but at the same time tests literary conceptualizations of history, nationalism, gender and selfhood, and considers the failures of social and legal institutionalizations of violence, in a critique of literary form and of social order.

Editorial Reviews

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 published on Anglo-Norman, Middle English, and twentieth-century literature, and is editor of Essays on Thomas Hoccleve.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; 1st edition (May 3, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312229984
• ISBN-13: 978-0312229986
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,549,721 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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