Where the Middle Ages Begin
The jury is back and the verdict is in. In Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, a major reason the Round Table falls is that its political apparatus and the chivalric ethos in which that apparatus is grounded are inadequate for maintaining a stable kingdom.
Looking for a name for your avatar? Look no further! Everyone knows Lancelot and Gawain, but here are some lesser-known names from one of my favourite books: Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte D’Arthur.
This project documents and analyzes the gendered transformation of magical figures occurring in Arthurian romance in England from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries.
The aim of this research paper is to analyse the Morte D’Arthur and find certain historical moments incorporated in the book. Firstly, as the goal of work follows a hypothesis that Thomas Malory reflected manifold incidents from the Wars of the Roses in the Morte D’Arthur, it was inevitable to understand author’s position in this civil war, which meant investigating in the authorship.
Examining the Middle Ages through modern eyes: movies, TV, stage, tourism and books. How do we perform the Middle Ages?
Depictions of the Scots in the Arthurian Legend Diana Jefferies Journal of the Sydney Society for Scottish History: Vol 14 (2013) Abstract This paper will explore how motifs of Scotland and Scottishness are portrayed in medieval versions of the Arthurian Legend. I will discuss how the context of what is alleged to be the first […]
If t-shirts had been all the rage in the Middle Ages, you can bet there would have been ‘Team Lancelot’ ones selling like hotcakes. You can also bet that I wouldn’t have owned one.
King Arthur is a well known character of literature and film, and any person on the street could probably recall many aspects of his story. However, the story that so many people know and love is the result of hundreds of years of transformation and manipulation of a legend. It did not begin with much grandiosity or with very much background information.
This thesis investigates the theme of family interactions within Malory‘s ―Tale of Sir Gareth,‖ examining the tale itself as well as looking at several analogous Fair Unknown stories in order to determine if the theme is Malory‘s own or if it could have come from a probable source.
In the Roman de Fergus, a thirteenth-century verse romance in Old French, Guillaume le Clerc considers the consequences of Arthur’s assimilationist expansionism with a more focused attention to cultural difference and personal identity, again centered on the experience of a knight from Galloway, the eponymous
According to Hopkins, “[Arthur’s] queen, Guinevere, is more elusive, less written about [than Arthur and his knights], and yet has been for centuries a central character playing a critical role in the rise and fall of the Round Table” (6). He goes on by characterizing her as “a key figure in the life of Camelot, this remarkable woman is seen variably as scholar, seductress, warrior, and dignified gentle beauty by the countless artists and writers who have depicted her. Who, then, was Guinevere?” (10) The purpose of this essay is to answer this question by looking at different texts and novels referring to the Queen.
The Middle English Romances are somewhat difficult to study as a group. In order to examine these works accurately, one must take into consideration other literature produced at the same tirne, as well as that which preceded it.
The War of Roses might have been the most prominent event on the English political stage at the time when the Morte d’Arthur was written, and there is evidence that Malory’s writing was in part informed by he civil discord he was witnessing.
The book is one the most famous fiction stories about legendary King Arthur, whose life and death predominantly compose the spine of Malory’s tale
Madness has been long misrepresented in medieval studies. Assertions that conceptions of mental illness were unknown to medieval people, or that all madmen were assumed to be possessed by the devil, were at one time common in accounts of medieval society.
The Arthurian oeuvre traditionally maintains a plot structure that requires knights to depart from the Round Table, either as a response to a challenge or in quest of chivalric “aventure,” followed by a return to Camelot. Within this narrative framework, there exists an intricately designed logic to descriptions of movement and travel. In particular, sex and travel appear inseparable.
The medieval English forest has long been a space of contested legal meanings. After King William I first created the 75,000-acre New Forest, the English monarchy sought to define the vert, both legally and ideologically, as a multiplicity of sites in which the king’s rights were vigorously enforced.
The heroic tales of the legendary King Arthur have survived throughout many centuries. Modern society has learned of this celebrated figure through oral and literary tradition, such as the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s pseudo-history Historia Regum Britanniae, Sir Thomas Malory’s romantic epic Le Morte d’Arthur and medieval Arthurian poetry.
Sir Thomas Malory takes advantage of the horse, and horsemanship in general, to illustrate the upheavals brought about within his culture, and also within the individual, by violence and warfare.
The first chapter of my thesis provides a chronological account of the development of female characters in the Arthurian legend. The chapter begins with Celtic myths from which the legend originated, the role of women in Celtic religion and society is described as well as the extent to which the Celtic aspects of the legend have been preserved…
Verbal interactions of female characters of Le Morte Darthur are analyzed in various instances of speech behavior, such as advice, apology, conflict managing, complaining, nagging and teasing.
Upon first glance, Malory’s Morte Darthur appears to be a boy’s book. It is packed with blood, sword fighting, kings, knights, battles and more battles.
The main issue, then, is how Arthurian women characters have been portrayed throughout the centuries and the reasons for those particular ways of portrayal.
Heraldry and Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur By Lani Visaisouk Master’s Thesis, Utrecht University, 2006 Introduction: In 1136, King Arthur makes his first appearance in the English literary tradition: Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain contains a lengthy section on Arthur. As in other early sources on Arthur, he is both […]
The use of trial by battle in the work of Sir Thomas Malory Enyon, Nadine Ruth(Saskatoon, Saskatchewan) M.A. Thesis, English, University of Saskatchewan (1974) Abstract In this thesis I will examine the use of trials by battle in the work of Sir Thomas Malory. In Chapter One, I will study the historical practice of judicial combat […]
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