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Malory: Complete Works
This single-volume edition of the complete works of Sir Thomas Malory was first published in the Oxford Standard Authors series in 1971. It was described then in The Scotsman as 'a text which is not only the most accurate ever available, but also beautifully presented and a pleasure to read', and it supersedes for students of the Arthurian legends Caxton's Le Morte D'Arthur. The basis of the text is the unique fifteenth-century manuscript found in 1934 in the Fellows Library of Winchester College, which is not merely much closer than Caxton's text to what Malory actually wrote, but livelier too. Its fifteenth-century English presents few difficulties, and the reader's eye quickly becomes accustomed to the old spellings, which could not be modernized without destroying much of the essential period quality of this great early masterpiece of English literature. Included in this edition are an introduction, a glossary, and fifty pages of explanatory notes on each of Malory's romances.
Eugene Vinaver is Emeritus Professor in the University of Manchester.
Eugene Vinaver is Emeritus Professor in the University of Manchester.
811 pages, Paperback
First published April 6, 2015
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About the author
Thomas Malory
893 books758 followersFrom French sources, Sir Thomas Malory, English writer in floruit in 1470, adapted
Le Morte d'Arthur
, a collection of romances, which William Caxton published in 1485.
From original tales such as the Vulgate Cycle , Sir Thomas Malory, an imprisoned knight in the fifteenth century, meanwhile compiled and translated the tales, which we know as the legend of king.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_...
From original tales such as the Vulgate Cycle , Sir Thomas Malory, an imprisoned knight in the fifteenth century, meanwhile compiled and translated the tales, which we know as the legend of king.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
November 21, 2013
cross-posted at booklikes and the mo-centric universe.
my copy of le morte d'arthur is the classic and complete vinaver edit and i highly recommend it. i haven't read it in years but picking it up now, i assure you this copy is well-thumbed and annotated from my first reading in university. in the first fifty pages, i have written in a very small hand above words to explain their meanings, as i did when reading other, older middle english works much more difficult to ken. still, i smile when i see that i have copied from the glossary "provoked" over "syke" which rings so closely to our modern "psych!". eventually the notations taper off, as i began to get the rhythm and word structures set in my head but there is pencil-underlining throughout the texts, and bright-pink pen underlining some of the notes at the back. i see here that i argued with some of the notes in the margins. i read the hell out of this book, twice. there is a major crack in the spine at page 519, in book 8 of "the quest for the holy grail" or more properly the "Sankgreall". i find i even made the time to draw a two-tone flower on the page thickness, and more faintly, a pencil one-eyed monster eye, and a triton.
i had always had a soft spot for Arthurian legend and i was thrilled to read Malory's translation of the French tales in English. despite the lengthy and repetitive lists of who slaughtered whom in battle after battle, i loved reading it. i have always been interested in questions of honour and what is right, for the individual, and what he must forsake for the right to honour in his community as a whole. there is both blame and beauty in this book, and notes i scribbled in its blank pages at the end show i was preoccupied with these ideas, of camelot as a dream, and arthur's inability to ignore the slights to his own personal honour in order to protect it.
the last lines i underlined are these:
"And therefore, seyde the king, wyte you well, my harte was never so hevy as hyte ys now. And much more I am soryar for my good knytes losse than for the losse of my fayre queen; for quenys I myghte have inow, but such a felyship of good knytes shall never be togydirs in no company. And now i dare sey, seyde the kynge Arthur, there was never Crystyn kynge that ever hylde such a felyship togydyrs. And alas, that ever sir Launcelot and I shulde be at debate! A, Aggravayne, Aggravayne,! seyd the kynge, Jesu forgyff hit thy soule, for thyne evyll wyll that thou haddist and sir Mordred, thy brother, unto sir Launcelot hath caused all this sorow.
And ever among thes complayntes the kynge wept and sowned."
This work by Maureen de Sousa is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
my copy of le morte d'arthur is the classic and complete vinaver edit and i highly recommend it. i haven't read it in years but picking it up now, i assure you this copy is well-thumbed and annotated from my first reading in university. in the first fifty pages, i have written in a very small hand above words to explain their meanings, as i did when reading other, older middle english works much more difficult to ken. still, i smile when i see that i have copied from the glossary "provoked" over "syke" which rings so closely to our modern "psych!". eventually the notations taper off, as i began to get the rhythm and word structures set in my head but there is pencil-underlining throughout the texts, and bright-pink pen underlining some of the notes at the back. i see here that i argued with some of the notes in the margins. i read the hell out of this book, twice. there is a major crack in the spine at page 519, in book 8 of "the quest for the holy grail" or more properly the "Sankgreall". i find i even made the time to draw a two-tone flower on the page thickness, and more faintly, a pencil one-eyed monster eye, and a triton.
i had always had a soft spot for Arthurian legend and i was thrilled to read Malory's translation of the French tales in English. despite the lengthy and repetitive lists of who slaughtered whom in battle after battle, i loved reading it. i have always been interested in questions of honour and what is right, for the individual, and what he must forsake for the right to honour in his community as a whole. there is both blame and beauty in this book, and notes i scribbled in its blank pages at the end show i was preoccupied with these ideas, of camelot as a dream, and arthur's inability to ignore the slights to his own personal honour in order to protect it.
the last lines i underlined are these:
"And therefore, seyde the king, wyte you well, my harte was never so hevy as hyte ys now. And much more I am soryar for my good knytes losse than for the losse of my fayre queen; for quenys I myghte have inow, but such a felyship of good knytes shall never be togydirs in no company. And now i dare sey, seyde the kynge Arthur, there was never Crystyn kynge that ever hylde such a felyship togydyrs. And alas, that ever sir Launcelot and I shulde be at debate! A, Aggravayne, Aggravayne,! seyd the kynge, Jesu forgyff hit thy soule, for thyne evyll wyll that thou haddist and sir Mordred, thy brother, unto sir Launcelot hath caused all this sorow.
And ever among thes complayntes the kynge wept and sowned."
This work by Maureen de Sousa is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
November 2, 2011
As far as I'm concerned this is the edition of Malory's _Le Morte D'Arthur_ to read. The Middle English is really not so foreign that it requires 'translation' and even modernizing the spelling seems a bit superfluous to me as I felt the archaic spelling added to my immersion in the stories.
Malory is certainly not an easy read however, and his repetitions and digressions can become a bit tiring to the modern reader at times. That said, if you approach the text as a series of linked tales as opposed to one monumental novel (though there is indeed an overall story arc) it is much more easily digested. Many of the greatest moments for me were those that 'strayed' from this overarching narrative and simply told of interesting characters and wonderful scenes. These included the tragic brothers Balin & Balan, Gawain's courteous younger brother Gareth, and Sir Tristram's unlucky rival Palomides.
An enjoyable read and certainly required for any serious student or aficionado of Arthuriana.
Malory is certainly not an easy read however, and his repetitions and digressions can become a bit tiring to the modern reader at times. That said, if you approach the text as a series of linked tales as opposed to one monumental novel (though there is indeed an overall story arc) it is much more easily digested. Many of the greatest moments for me were those that 'strayed' from this overarching narrative and simply told of interesting characters and wonderful scenes. These included the tragic brothers Balin & Balan, Gawain's courteous younger brother Gareth, and Sir Tristram's unlucky rival Palomides.
An enjoyable read and certainly required for any serious student or aficionado of Arthuriana.
March 11, 2016
Locus classicus of the mythology in English. This is the indispensable edition.
Represents several fusions of the mythology:
a) Gawaine-centered variants (such as The Alliterative Morte Arthur) with Launcelot-centered variants (e.g., Chretien);
b) romance-oriented variants (the Frynsshe Booke) with chronicle-oriented variants (Galfridus, say, or Nennius, Bede); and
c) Celtic with Germanic and Romanic bits.
The juxtapositions are important, but the overall narrative achieved is something more than the sum of the parts.
Represents several fusions of the mythology:
a) Gawaine-centered variants (such as The Alliterative Morte Arthur) with Launcelot-centered variants (e.g., Chretien);
b) romance-oriented variants (the Frynsshe Booke) with chronicle-oriented variants (Galfridus, say, or Nennius, Bede); and
c) Celtic with Germanic and Romanic bits.
The juxtapositions are important, but the overall narrative achieved is something more than the sum of the parts.
October 7, 2009
This is the standard cheap critical edition of Malory's Le Morte Darthur . . . sorry, Malory's works. Vinaver, the editor, takes a lot of liberties with the text.
March 30, 2013
For me, there exist two great editions of medieval textual scholarship, one is Frederick Klaeber's edition of Beowulf, the other is Eugene Vinaver's edition of Thomas Malory's Arthurian Romances. Over the years, I've had the good fortune to lay my hands on the first, second and third editions of Vinaver's three volume edition and also the Matthews and Spisak edition of Caxton's Malory. While I'm not the worlds biggest fan of Arthurian literature or Malory, I do enjoy a well edited medieval text.
The story itself, I find strangely enjoyable. The First couple of chapters were great but I found the Tristan story to be chaotic and boring, I would take Eilhart's or Gottfried's versions over this any day. The grail quest was ok but the book really became good for me in the last couple of hundred pages that deal with the fall of Camelot, this is excellent.
I found this one volume edition in a secondhand bookshop many years ago and couldn't resist buying it, it had the same hardcover binding that Field's third edition had. Unfortunately that's where the comparisons end.
For this slimmed down one volume edition the 147 page introduction is replaced by a general reader friendly 15 pages. All of Vinaver's second edition text is complete but is minus all the footnotes, variant readings and the Caxton texts. The 400 page commentary is gone and replaced by a 49 page abridgement and renamed, notes. Totally gone is the index of proper names and even the bibliography, thankfully there's still a glossary which Vinaver revised for this edition.
On a plus side, this is an ideal travel companion but there's no getting away from the fact that this is a book that is less than half the size of its big brother. This an ideal book for the beginner, but for me, there's only one way to read Vinaver's Malory, and that's the 1990 three volume revision by P. J. C Field. Reading Vinaver's Malory without Vinaver's critical apparatus is like watching the Two Ronnies without Ronnie Barker, all you get is a little chap saying sorry.
The story itself, I find strangely enjoyable. The First couple of chapters were great but I found the Tristan story to be chaotic and boring, I would take Eilhart's or Gottfried's versions over this any day. The grail quest was ok but the book really became good for me in the last couple of hundred pages that deal with the fall of Camelot, this is excellent.
I found this one volume edition in a secondhand bookshop many years ago and couldn't resist buying it, it had the same hardcover binding that Field's third edition had. Unfortunately that's where the comparisons end.
For this slimmed down one volume edition the 147 page introduction is replaced by a general reader friendly 15 pages. All of Vinaver's second edition text is complete but is minus all the footnotes, variant readings and the Caxton texts. The 400 page commentary is gone and replaced by a 49 page abridgement and renamed, notes. Totally gone is the index of proper names and even the bibliography, thankfully there's still a glossary which Vinaver revised for this edition.
On a plus side, this is an ideal travel companion but there's no getting away from the fact that this is a book that is less than half the size of its big brother. This an ideal book for the beginner, but for me, there's only one way to read Vinaver's Malory, and that's the 1990 three volume revision by P. J. C Field. Reading Vinaver's Malory without Vinaver's critical apparatus is like watching the Two Ronnies without Ronnie Barker, all you get is a little chap saying sorry.
May 10, 2013
This was my first read of this classic, and it's full of wonderful tales, cunningly interlaced. Glad to read it with the aid of a professor to guide me through it, Summa Magistra Verlyn Flieger. I was also aided by listening to Librivox recordings of the Caxton version (this is the Vinaver version with some different phrasing and a couple additional episodes). Hearing it read while reading along was very helpful in understanding the non-standardized spelling and getting the gist of the story without constantly referring to the glossary.
Some of the knights' tales, especially in the earlier sections, felt a bit like reading the transcript from a baseball announcer, with all the blows and smiting in tournaments and knightly encounters. Battle descriptions (like watching most sports) have always bored this reader. To the degree that it sometimes advances character development, I can tolerate it.
While these tales collect around King Arthur and he's a central character, he remains mostly a cipher, while the other knights and especially Sir Gawain, Sir Launcelot, and Queen Gwenyver have a great deal of character development through the stories. Having read earlier versions of these stories in class (Geoffrey of Monmouth, Mabinogion, Christien de Troyes), Malory is by far the most complete and inclusive without being repetitive (aside from the smiting).
Want to re-read.
Some of the knights' tales, especially in the earlier sections, felt a bit like reading the transcript from a baseball announcer, with all the blows and smiting in tournaments and knightly encounters. Battle descriptions (like watching most sports) have always bored this reader. To the degree that it sometimes advances character development, I can tolerate it.
While these tales collect around King Arthur and he's a central character, he remains mostly a cipher, while the other knights and especially Sir Gawain, Sir Launcelot, and Queen Gwenyver have a great deal of character development through the stories. Having read earlier versions of these stories in class (Geoffrey of Monmouth, Mabinogion, Christien de Troyes), Malory is by far the most complete and inclusive without being repetitive (aside from the smiting).
Want to re-read.
May 19, 2020
I got this book for my Arthurian Legends class at William and Mary. We read parts of it for class; I remember the experience of reading it, with the weird spellings and all. And I clearly must have read some of it, because there are passages underlined. So I always meant to come back to it and read the whole thing.
I used to LOVE the Arthurian Legends. Mostly the Merlin stuff and the putting together of the Round Table and some of the Grail stuff, if only because it's reappeared in popular culture so much. Not so much the Lancelot and Guinevere stuff. And now that I've read the whole thing, I think I know why I always left that part to the side: it's because their story belies the entire idea of chivalry and truth. You can throw Tristan and Isolde in there, too. Just because Mark is a douchebag, doesn't make it OK to commit adultery against him or with his wife. Arthur is less of a douche, but he seems pretty gullible, selfish, and easily swayed by the last person he listened to. Merlin tells him not to marry her, because she will love Lancelot, not him. And Arthur's like, "Eh. It will be fine. Plus she's hot, so I'm gonna do it anyway." And then for most of the book he forgets that he was told of their love and refuses to believe it, while the whole court talks about it behind his back. And then when Gawain finally gets mad at Lancelot for killing Gareth, Arthur won't stand up to him, even though he wants to. And then a hundred thousand soldiers die. The more I read, the madder I got.
So here's what I mean about Lancelot and Guinevere's story belying the assumption that this whole world rests of chivalry and truth. THEY COMMIT ADULTERY AND LIE ABOUT IT. For YEARS. But they love each other, so it's OK. She inspires him to great deeds; he comforts himself with her beauty. WHATEVER. When they finally get found out and can't play it off, Lancelot says "I'll fight anyone who says she's not the truest lady to her lord." So: here are my layers of analysis of this. One, he doesn't say she didn't do it, just that he'll fight anyone who says otherwise. I supposed this is his way around "lying" because he's just posturing and bullying to spare her honor and get everyone to shut up about it. Two, there's this undercurrent that God lets only "true" knights win jousts and battles, that if a knight were REALLY on the wrong side, God wouldn't let him win. But this is disproved A BUNCH OF TIMES. Lancelot knows what he did, he knows he's won battles even while a sinner, so he knows the whole thing about God only letting "good" people win is bullshit. And yet he uses everyone else's faith in that (not to mention their fear of him as the best knight in the whole wide world) to bolster his claim that he and Guinevere have done nothing wrong. Knights are supposed to be honorable and tell the truth. And Lancelot KNOWS he and Guinevere have lied, and still he pretends to have honor or that her honor matters to him (so he can't let her die at the stake for something HE did when really they both did it but really they didn't do it, wink, wink). Her outward appearance of honor might matter, but he could have just stayed away from her if he cared about her honor for realsies. And so he takes advantage of everyone's good faith in him, of his reputation as a deadly knight, and of all the kinship and loyalty ties people have to him, mustering an army to defend themselves against FALSE CHARGES. And people are OK with it! A lot of the defense of the knights who side with him are "Well, he's a REALLY good knight, so I like him better than Arthur" not "This guy is in the right." But my FAVORITE interpretation of the line that he wants to prove Guinevere is the "truest lady to her lord" is this: what he's REALLY saying is that ALL ladies cheat, so Guinevere is truer than all others because she only cheated with ONE guy whom she really (REALLY) loved. There was an incident with a horn that only "true" women could drink out of, and almost all of them failed. So this could be Lancelot's crapweasel-y way of saying "What? Adultery's not that big of a deal! All the cool kids do it!" So this could be his cynical indictment of the whole damn sham of marriage and fidelity. But that doesn't make me like him better or think what he's doing is right. He wants the facade of doing right, not the actual hard way. That's why he and Galahad are different (although Galahad is all of 15, so...).
And then he enlists thousands of people in a campaign to defend honor that he knows isn't there. He hedges when Arthur comes for him, saying that he won't fight him directly, he'll just let a bunch of common folk and lesser knights die in order not to go against "the king who made [him] a knight". But then Gawain calls him a traitor (which he is) and then he fights. So he's now defending his honor against a bad word ("traitor") when HE KNOWS HE DID THE THING HE'S ACCUSED OF. Plus all the crap he says to Arthur about how much he did for him; it's like "Dude, everyone's afraid of you because I work for you, so get off my back for taking a few extracurricular perks."
Some might say that chivalry doesn't extend to avoiding sleeping with your boss's wife. It's LOVE. Courtly love is beautiful and noble. Whatever, bitches. I'd say you might have a leg to stand on, within the logic of the story, when Arthur says he regrets the fracturing of the Round Table over this quarrel more than the loss of his queen, because he can get more queens. Fine. So bros before hos. Got it. But what is so beautiful about their love? Guinevere is always pissed because she's worried he's not going to be true to her, and she sends him away and drives him crazy more than once. And what's all this "being true" to her? Lancelot sleeps with Elaine and gets Galahad, plus he toys with the affections of numerous other women. But he never meant it in his HEART: "it was enchantment, baby! I was thinking of you the whole time!" Their love is full of turmoil and jealousy and recriminations, because they CAN'T be together publicly. So THIS is the joy of courtly love? At the same time and more generally for the code, what about telling the truth? Is that really so mutable in the knightly code? And if keeping the commandments is so important for the Grail Quest (like being a virgin or only having done it ONCE), then why not throughout a knight's life? And are we really going to split hairs that only Guinevere committed adultery because she's the married one (and the woman)? There are larger suggestions that the code of chivalry isn't all that strict: Gawain and his brothers (not Gareth and Gaheris) are "murderers" for they killed Lamerok and some other knights in cold blood, without the proper ritual of jousting and sword play and all the steps necessary for a good kill. And they are still knights of the Round Table even though everyone talks about THAT at court, too. So the whole edifice is built on lies, rumor, bullying, and justifications for shit they wanted to do anyway.
So I think I'm done. When I think of all the people who died because of Lancelot and Guinevere, I get so mad. OH! And then at the end, Lancelot is like "Well, babe, Arthur's dead. Wanna make a go of it?" And Guinevere is like "Dummy: we need to be PUNISHED for all the lives we ruined, so I'm gonna be a nun." And he's like "Yeah, me too." He's got NO moral compass, even though he already knows he lost the Grail quest because of his sins.
The little lives around the edges also bother me. All those damsels captured by knights against their will and they're just prizes and transferred from one to the other. And the fields burned. And the hermits harassed. And the poor doctors who have to stitch these idiots up repeatedly. And when Lancelot is in Guinevere's chambers when they finally catch them, they mention Guinevere's ladies (plural!) help dress him in the armor of the first dead knight so he can fight his way out! The servants always know what's going on. I just wonder who those two thought they were kidding.
A few months back, I read an Icelandic saga, and one of the issues I had with the logic of the story was the theme of "I know if I pursue this course, I'm going to die. But I'm going to do it anyway." I can't get my head around that. From Arthur marrying Guinevere knowing she'll love another all the way through Arthur meeting Mordred in battle on the last day even though dead Gawain comes to him in a dream and says "If you fight him today, you'll die." At the time I attributed it to those wacky Icelanders. But this idea runs through these stories as well. It doesn't seem tragic or noble to me to pursue purposefully a course of self-destruction. It just seems willfully ignorant and a waste of time and life. I guess I'm not "honorable" as I'd rather live than die gloriously.
And all the death from tournaments and random jousting at bridges! So many knights (and horses!) die just from running around the countryside challenging each other and then killing each other or being willing to fight to the death just because they see someone they don't know (or don't think they know). Seriously: more than once, knights see other knights and are like "I bet I could kill that guy over there." And so they joust and then fight to the death. And even if they don't go to the death, there's a lot of healing of wounds time. Such a waste of resources and effort. It's all a thin veneer of civilization on a violent, bloodthirsty world. And maybe people would read this and say "Doi: that's the point." But we spend a lot of time glorifying this set of stories as a culture, and they're really not good. Maybe this is not the book for a pandemic.
I used to LOVE the Arthurian Legends. Mostly the Merlin stuff and the putting together of the Round Table and some of the Grail stuff, if only because it's reappeared in popular culture so much. Not so much the Lancelot and Guinevere stuff. And now that I've read the whole thing, I think I know why I always left that part to the side: it's because their story belies the entire idea of chivalry and truth. You can throw Tristan and Isolde in there, too. Just because Mark is a douchebag, doesn't make it OK to commit adultery against him or with his wife. Arthur is less of a douche, but he seems pretty gullible, selfish, and easily swayed by the last person he listened to. Merlin tells him not to marry her, because she will love Lancelot, not him. And Arthur's like, "Eh. It will be fine. Plus she's hot, so I'm gonna do it anyway." And then for most of the book he forgets that he was told of their love and refuses to believe it, while the whole court talks about it behind his back. And then when Gawain finally gets mad at Lancelot for killing Gareth, Arthur won't stand up to him, even though he wants to. And then a hundred thousand soldiers die. The more I read, the madder I got.
So here's what I mean about Lancelot and Guinevere's story belying the assumption that this whole world rests of chivalry and truth. THEY COMMIT ADULTERY AND LIE ABOUT IT. For YEARS. But they love each other, so it's OK. She inspires him to great deeds; he comforts himself with her beauty. WHATEVER. When they finally get found out and can't play it off, Lancelot says "I'll fight anyone who says she's not the truest lady to her lord." So: here are my layers of analysis of this. One, he doesn't say she didn't do it, just that he'll fight anyone who says otherwise. I supposed this is his way around "lying" because he's just posturing and bullying to spare her honor and get everyone to shut up about it. Two, there's this undercurrent that God lets only "true" knights win jousts and battles, that if a knight were REALLY on the wrong side, God wouldn't let him win. But this is disproved A BUNCH OF TIMES. Lancelot knows what he did, he knows he's won battles even while a sinner, so he knows the whole thing about God only letting "good" people win is bullshit. And yet he uses everyone else's faith in that (not to mention their fear of him as the best knight in the whole wide world) to bolster his claim that he and Guinevere have done nothing wrong. Knights are supposed to be honorable and tell the truth. And Lancelot KNOWS he and Guinevere have lied, and still he pretends to have honor or that her honor matters to him (so he can't let her die at the stake for something HE did when really they both did it but really they didn't do it, wink, wink). Her outward appearance of honor might matter, but he could have just stayed away from her if he cared about her honor for realsies. And so he takes advantage of everyone's good faith in him, of his reputation as a deadly knight, and of all the kinship and loyalty ties people have to him, mustering an army to defend themselves against FALSE CHARGES. And people are OK with it! A lot of the defense of the knights who side with him are "Well, he's a REALLY good knight, so I like him better than Arthur" not "This guy is in the right." But my FAVORITE interpretation of the line that he wants to prove Guinevere is the "truest lady to her lord" is this: what he's REALLY saying is that ALL ladies cheat, so Guinevere is truer than all others because she only cheated with ONE guy whom she really (REALLY) loved. There was an incident with a horn that only "true" women could drink out of, and almost all of them failed. So this could be Lancelot's crapweasel-y way of saying "What? Adultery's not that big of a deal! All the cool kids do it!" So this could be his cynical indictment of the whole damn sham of marriage and fidelity. But that doesn't make me like him better or think what he's doing is right. He wants the facade of doing right, not the actual hard way. That's why he and Galahad are different (although Galahad is all of 15, so...).
And then he enlists thousands of people in a campaign to defend honor that he knows isn't there. He hedges when Arthur comes for him, saying that he won't fight him directly, he'll just let a bunch of common folk and lesser knights die in order not to go against "the king who made [him] a knight". But then Gawain calls him a traitor (which he is) and then he fights. So he's now defending his honor against a bad word ("traitor") when HE KNOWS HE DID THE THING HE'S ACCUSED OF. Plus all the crap he says to Arthur about how much he did for him; it's like "Dude, everyone's afraid of you because I work for you, so get off my back for taking a few extracurricular perks."
Some might say that chivalry doesn't extend to avoiding sleeping with your boss's wife. It's LOVE. Courtly love is beautiful and noble. Whatever, bitches. I'd say you might have a leg to stand on, within the logic of the story, when Arthur says he regrets the fracturing of the Round Table over this quarrel more than the loss of his queen, because he can get more queens. Fine. So bros before hos. Got it. But what is so beautiful about their love? Guinevere is always pissed because she's worried he's not going to be true to her, and she sends him away and drives him crazy more than once. And what's all this "being true" to her? Lancelot sleeps with Elaine and gets Galahad, plus he toys with the affections of numerous other women. But he never meant it in his HEART: "it was enchantment, baby! I was thinking of you the whole time!" Their love is full of turmoil and jealousy and recriminations, because they CAN'T be together publicly. So THIS is the joy of courtly love? At the same time and more generally for the code, what about telling the truth? Is that really so mutable in the knightly code? And if keeping the commandments is so important for the Grail Quest (like being a virgin or only having done it ONCE), then why not throughout a knight's life? And are we really going to split hairs that only Guinevere committed adultery because she's the married one (and the woman)? There are larger suggestions that the code of chivalry isn't all that strict: Gawain and his brothers (not Gareth and Gaheris) are "murderers" for they killed Lamerok and some other knights in cold blood, without the proper ritual of jousting and sword play and all the steps necessary for a good kill. And they are still knights of the Round Table even though everyone talks about THAT at court, too. So the whole edifice is built on lies, rumor, bullying, and justifications for shit they wanted to do anyway.
So I think I'm done. When I think of all the people who died because of Lancelot and Guinevere, I get so mad. OH! And then at the end, Lancelot is like "Well, babe, Arthur's dead. Wanna make a go of it?" And Guinevere is like "Dummy: we need to be PUNISHED for all the lives we ruined, so I'm gonna be a nun." And he's like "Yeah, me too." He's got NO moral compass, even though he already knows he lost the Grail quest because of his sins.
The little lives around the edges also bother me. All those damsels captured by knights against their will and they're just prizes and transferred from one to the other. And the fields burned. And the hermits harassed. And the poor doctors who have to stitch these idiots up repeatedly. And when Lancelot is in Guinevere's chambers when they finally catch them, they mention Guinevere's ladies (plural!) help dress him in the armor of the first dead knight so he can fight his way out! The servants always know what's going on. I just wonder who those two thought they were kidding.
A few months back, I read an Icelandic saga, and one of the issues I had with the logic of the story was the theme of "I know if I pursue this course, I'm going to die. But I'm going to do it anyway." I can't get my head around that. From Arthur marrying Guinevere knowing she'll love another all the way through Arthur meeting Mordred in battle on the last day even though dead Gawain comes to him in a dream and says "If you fight him today, you'll die." At the time I attributed it to those wacky Icelanders. But this idea runs through these stories as well. It doesn't seem tragic or noble to me to pursue purposefully a course of self-destruction. It just seems willfully ignorant and a waste of time and life. I guess I'm not "honorable" as I'd rather live than die gloriously.
And all the death from tournaments and random jousting at bridges! So many knights (and horses!) die just from running around the countryside challenging each other and then killing each other or being willing to fight to the death just because they see someone they don't know (or don't think they know). Seriously: more than once, knights see other knights and are like "I bet I could kill that guy over there." And so they joust and then fight to the death. And even if they don't go to the death, there's a lot of healing of wounds time. Such a waste of resources and effort. It's all a thin veneer of civilization on a violent, bloodthirsty world. And maybe people would read this and say "Doi: that's the point." But we spend a lot of time glorifying this set of stories as a culture, and they're really not good. Maybe this is not the book for a pandemic.
November 21, 2007
Surprisingly good--
Long, repetitive, and formulaic to the point of being grossly unsophisticated, The Morte D'Arthur in its original late Middle English is surprisingly and remarkably engaging and readable. It really does attest to the sheer power of story-telling that eschews unnecessary details and keeps the story moving at all costs.
In this work, Sir Thomas Malory presents a condensed compilation of the Arthurian legend taken from various French and English sources. And he takes great pains to extract, rearrange, and splice together coherent and engaging stories from scattered and sometimes contradictory fragments. Although there were slow and maddeningly long parts (esp. 'The Book of Sir Tristram De Lyones,' which clocks in at 300 pages, almost 40% of the entire book), never did I feel sleepy or bored as constant actions kept me engaged at all times. The language - late Middle English - is not bad at all, at least much, much understandable than Chaucer's Middle English. The book provides the reader with necessary notes and glossary where you can look up unfamiliar words, making it - as a review on its back cover says - "eminently readable."
As for the individual divisions or 'books' in the work, I found the last three - "The Tale of the Sankgreal" (the quest of the holy grail), "The Book of Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere," and the title story, "The Death of Arthur" - to be the most fascinating as Malory in these last three books masters the splicing technique and the stories are just a blast to read even by modern standards.
"The Book of Sir Tristram" and "The Tale of Sir Gareth of Orkney" both suffer from head-bangingly monotonous and eye-rollingly naive plot. The book of Tristram is just too long with too many episodes and too many names. It also doesn't tell us how the affair between Tristram and Isolde ends (told 160 pages later in the book of Lancelot and Guinevere), or how Lamerok, one of the three greatest knights of all time along with Lancelot and Tristram (excluding Galahad since he is like a God-incarnate and belongs more or less to the celestial order than to the mere human species, any member of which he can hand his or her ass to him or her at any moment with a pinky finger, even while tending to his ungodly plumbing business) gets murdered by Gawain and his brothers. Though there are characters and events that the book foreshadows, it may best be skipped or read in parts for the interest of time.
The book of Gareth, on the other hand reads like a medieval version of a corny Power Rangers episode except the Power Rangers are the evil ones being butchered (NB: there are knights who are called the Black, Blue, White, Green, and finally Red Knights, and of course the Red Knight is the leader of them all. I'm not kidding.)
All of the divisions in their own way (even the mega-long book of Tristram and giga-facetious book of Gareth) are good stories once you get into them. Finally, although late Middle English is readable, the Middle-English-phobic reader may benefit from reading Signet Classic's modern translation, which would save both time and money ($7.95 with 500+ pages vs.$37 with 700+ pages).
All in all, a good book with good stories.
Long, repetitive, and formulaic to the point of being grossly unsophisticated, The Morte D'Arthur in its original late Middle English is surprisingly and remarkably engaging and readable. It really does attest to the sheer power of story-telling that eschews unnecessary details and keeps the story moving at all costs.
In this work, Sir Thomas Malory presents a condensed compilation of the Arthurian legend taken from various French and English sources. And he takes great pains to extract, rearrange, and splice together coherent and engaging stories from scattered and sometimes contradictory fragments. Although there were slow and maddeningly long parts (esp. 'The Book of Sir Tristram De Lyones,' which clocks in at 300 pages, almost 40% of the entire book), never did I feel sleepy or bored as constant actions kept me engaged at all times. The language - late Middle English - is not bad at all, at least much, much understandable than Chaucer's Middle English. The book provides the reader with necessary notes and glossary where you can look up unfamiliar words, making it - as a review on its back cover says - "eminently readable."
As for the individual divisions or 'books' in the work, I found the last three - "The Tale of the Sankgreal" (the quest of the holy grail), "The Book of Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere," and the title story, "The Death of Arthur" - to be the most fascinating as Malory in these last three books masters the splicing technique and the stories are just a blast to read even by modern standards.
"The Book of Sir Tristram" and "The Tale of Sir Gareth of Orkney" both suffer from head-bangingly monotonous and eye-rollingly naive plot. The book of Tristram is just too long with too many episodes and too many names. It also doesn't tell us how the affair between Tristram and Isolde ends (told 160 pages later in the book of Lancelot and Guinevere), or how Lamerok, one of the three greatest knights of all time along with Lancelot and Tristram (excluding Galahad since he is like a God-incarnate and belongs more or less to the celestial order than to the mere human species, any member of which he can hand his or her ass to him or her at any moment with a pinky finger, even while tending to his ungodly plumbing business) gets murdered by Gawain and his brothers. Though there are characters and events that the book foreshadows, it may best be skipped or read in parts for the interest of time.
The book of Gareth, on the other hand reads like a medieval version of a corny Power Rangers episode except the Power Rangers are the evil ones being butchered (NB: there are knights who are called the Black, Blue, White, Green, and finally Red Knights, and of course the Red Knight is the leader of them all. I'm not kidding.)
All of the divisions in their own way (even the mega-long book of Tristram and giga-facetious book of Gareth) are good stories once you get into them. Finally, although late Middle English is readable, the Middle-English-phobic reader may benefit from reading Signet Classic's modern translation, which would save both time and money ($7.95 with 500+ pages vs.$37 with 700+ pages).
All in all, a good book with good stories.
March 19, 2025
"‘Fayre felow,’ seyde sir Ector, ‘doste thou know this contrey or ony adventures that bene nyghe here honde?’"
This book contains both the complete unaltered Winchester manuscript in Middle English, and a "modernized" version of the Caxton text, as well as some illustrations, a history of the two texts, a likely biography of Sir Thomas Malory, glossaries, and additional notes and extras.
The Middle English Winchester is readable, if a bit distracting. The "modernized" Caxton, is only modern in spelling, and is still presented in large blocks unbroken by sensible paragraphing, with less punctuation than Cormac McCarthy.
For joyful reading, I prefer the Penguin version. The real value of this book is in seeing where the two versions differ, and in all the generous supplemental material.
This book contains both the complete unaltered Winchester manuscript in Middle English, and a "modernized" version of the Caxton text, as well as some illustrations, a history of the two texts, a likely biography of Sir Thomas Malory, glossaries, and additional notes and extras.
The Middle English Winchester is readable, if a bit distracting. The "modernized" Caxton, is only modern in spelling, and is still presented in large blocks unbroken by sensible paragraphing, with less punctuation than Cormac McCarthy.
For joyful reading, I prefer the Penguin version. The real value of this book is in seeing where the two versions differ, and in all the generous supplemental material.
March 12, 2007
Yes, Middle English is a bit much to slog through -- but it is all worthwhile when you reach a chapter where Lancelot attempts to prevent a man from killing his wife with an axe (she had done something utterly unforgivable, like have a sneeze within 30 feet of an unmarried man or something). The man says to Lancelot, "Hey, look over there!" Lancelot looks away, and the dude chops his wife's head off.
It's like Itchy and Scratchy, but with Merlin and a grail.
It's like Itchy and Scratchy, but with Merlin and a grail.
April 20, 2019
Re-reading this while the final season of Game of Thrones begins really highlights the Thronesy elements of Malory’s tale, which is of course where GRRM got it all. Incest, dragons and other magical beasts, dangerous sorceresses, miracles, betrayals, familial feuds, love affairs, sex and violence, the deaths of beloved characters, and all capped off with a civil war between friends in which you don’t even know who to root for anymore. What more do you need?
May 27, 2009
This would get five stars if not for 'The Book of Sir Tristram', which is a rather tedious slog.
April 25, 2018
Bittersweet. The sometimes long slog through the Middle English text is made worth it by the incredibly rich stories of King Arthur’s court.
own-but-unread
July 5, 2018Next Mythgard Institute class starts next week and I just ordered this book from HPB.
https://mythgard.org/academy/morte-da...
https://mythgard.org/academy/morte-da...
September 17, 2018
can't remember when i finished this exactly but raise your hand if you teared a little when arthur died
November 21, 2024
The Middle English is great and worth reading if only to add some excitement to the otherwise dry and repetitive prose. It's not so difficult to get going on this text from no experience with Middle English and the color with which it imbues the stories is too good to pass up. Whethir thou wylte othir nylt, wyte thou well hit ys passyng fayre.
I'm reminded of jumping headfirst into the Nadsat of A Clockwork Orange, a very rewarding experience, and this feels much more intense while still feeling reachable and not overwhelmingly foreign. In a way, this is much easier than Shakespeare because after the strange spelling settles in it's only the unfamiliar vocabulary that will take effort and there's no poetic word-order to strain your head with (now the simple repetitive prose becomes a boon rather than a drawback).
Coming into the tales of King Arthur as blind as anyone could be, I also found the archaic language and spelling helpful at the beginning to keep my interest as I had no investment in King Arthur other than reading a modern English translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and really liking it. I think it was a genuine possibility that if I went with a modern English version I would not have stuck with this book long enough to have fallen in love with it. After finishing the 700 pages of this authentic Middle English text the modern spelling or modern English editions look several times duller than I thought they did before, and I thought they looked quite dull to begin with.
I wasn't truly sold on the book until somewhere in the Sir Tristram section. There are so many names and events that take place in little text (and you find that most of these events are jousts) owing to the fact that Malory is summing up much lengthier sources ("as the Frenshe booke seyth"), and focus shifts from so many characters it's hard to find a footing. Actually the first glimmer of thinking this King Arthur stuff was really cool was Lancelot's section at the beginning where he goes to the Chapel Perelus, but Lancelot stops being the focus and we move on from him rather quickly, so it's with the 300 page Tristram section that we finally settle down with one character among the few characters in his orbit at which point I start to feel invested in the characters.
Between the language, stories, characters, imagery, and quests I found it hard not be bewitched by the whole thing. Easy to see how one can fall deep into the rabbit hole of the numerous variations of King Arthur tales, cycles, retellings...Why didn't Malory give us a conclusion to the hunt for the questynge beste? Maybe the absence of a conclusion is the point. Some other tellings disagree...and on and on it goes...
"And yet, alas! muste I love the. And I may nat blame the, fayre lady, for myne eyen caused me."
I'm reminded of jumping headfirst into the Nadsat of A Clockwork Orange, a very rewarding experience, and this feels much more intense while still feeling reachable and not overwhelmingly foreign. In a way, this is much easier than Shakespeare because after the strange spelling settles in it's only the unfamiliar vocabulary that will take effort and there's no poetic word-order to strain your head with (now the simple repetitive prose becomes a boon rather than a drawback).
Coming into the tales of King Arthur as blind as anyone could be, I also found the archaic language and spelling helpful at the beginning to keep my interest as I had no investment in King Arthur other than reading a modern English translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and really liking it. I think it was a genuine possibility that if I went with a modern English version I would not have stuck with this book long enough to have fallen in love with it. After finishing the 700 pages of this authentic Middle English text the modern spelling or modern English editions look several times duller than I thought they did before, and I thought they looked quite dull to begin with.
I wasn't truly sold on the book until somewhere in the Sir Tristram section. There are so many names and events that take place in little text (and you find that most of these events are jousts) owing to the fact that Malory is summing up much lengthier sources ("as the Frenshe booke seyth"), and focus shifts from so many characters it's hard to find a footing. Actually the first glimmer of thinking this King Arthur stuff was really cool was Lancelot's section at the beginning where he goes to the Chapel Perelus, but Lancelot stops being the focus and we move on from him rather quickly, so it's with the 300 page Tristram section that we finally settle down with one character among the few characters in his orbit at which point I start to feel invested in the characters.
Between the language, stories, characters, imagery, and quests I found it hard not be bewitched by the whole thing. Easy to see how one can fall deep into the rabbit hole of the numerous variations of King Arthur tales, cycles, retellings...Why didn't Malory give us a conclusion to the hunt for the questynge beste? Maybe the absence of a conclusion is the point. Some other tellings disagree...and on and on it goes...
"And yet, alas! muste I love the. And I may nat blame the, fayre lady, for myne eyen caused me."
October 9, 2022
I tasked myself with doing the most authentic possible reading of Malory. So much is possible these days with public domain material readily available. I found a pdf facsimile of the monk-scribed Winchester Manuscript of La Morte Darthur and proceeded to pick through it on my tablet, slowly acquiring speed at deciphering the writing. By about 400 pages in I was very good at it. It was a long process of almost two years. On a personal note, I started reading 7 weeks before my 9-year old daughter's DIPG diagnosis and I finished 11 months after her death. Now the ennobled prose is bound up with her heroism in my psyche. I can be kind of pedantic, and she made light-hearted fun of me for carrying around a Kindle tablet trying to read the old manuscript along with the thick Vinaver paperback volume, mentioning to her nurses in the hospital a couple of times how crazy I was.
What's the point of reading Malory? I don't understand why it's become the most prominent Arthurian text, although I haven't read enough of others to make comparisons. Understanding a bit of this 15th-century view of archaic chivalry is probably a good idea if one is to understand how our modern perceptions of heroism came about. At the forefront are the agreed code of honor, and the active longing to do battle as soon and as often as possible in the name of correcting and banishing evil. For Malory, any important turning point in world affairs must be accompanied and directed by an epic battle.
People will rarely say that Malory is compelling reading in the modern sense. It presents itself as a historical retelling from the best sources, but constantly betrays its own unreliability in delivering documentary material. The grandeur and majesty of all that's going on are conveyed on every page, even if there's a repetitiousness to the way events are structured and described. The major characters are depicted in a way that explores their depths remarkably for its time in literary history, but they are also iconic caricatures and emblems that can only be called superhuman.
I would certainly find it worth reading again, and would probably do a similar process with the Caxton facsimile and the Penguin two-volume set next to compare. Although, it would probably be really enjoyable to read Vinaver's edition again without trying to slog through the Winchester facsimile concurrently.
What's the point of reading Malory? I don't understand why it's become the most prominent Arthurian text, although I haven't read enough of others to make comparisons. Understanding a bit of this 15th-century view of archaic chivalry is probably a good idea if one is to understand how our modern perceptions of heroism came about. At the forefront are the agreed code of honor, and the active longing to do battle as soon and as often as possible in the name of correcting and banishing evil. For Malory, any important turning point in world affairs must be accompanied and directed by an epic battle.
People will rarely say that Malory is compelling reading in the modern sense. It presents itself as a historical retelling from the best sources, but constantly betrays its own unreliability in delivering documentary material. The grandeur and majesty of all that's going on are conveyed on every page, even if there's a repetitiousness to the way events are structured and described. The major characters are depicted in a way that explores their depths remarkably for its time in literary history, but they are also iconic caricatures and emblems that can only be called superhuman.
I would certainly find it worth reading again, and would probably do a similar process with the Caxton facsimile and the Penguin two-volume set next to compare. Although, it would probably be really enjoyable to read Vinaver's edition again without trying to slog through the Winchester facsimile concurrently.
Read
November 24, 2024how do i even cope with having finished this
Read
November 19, 2025I will never shut up about finishing this. Longest three weeks of my life.
October 21, 2020
Le Morte d'Arthur! The foremost compendium of Arthurian legend in the English language. 800 or so pages of "justing" and "worshypful dedis" aplenty. When Malory was in prison he set himself the rather daunting task of compiling almost the entirety of Arthurian legend up to that point into a somewhat cohesive whole. Now, before I go on, be under no illusions here, while this is in prose, and it can indeed be seen as a proto-novel, you will be sorely disappointed if you expect it to act like a novel. What this is is a series of loosely chronological stories ranging from the time of Arthur's birth, to his inevitable death (hence the title), with many tangents inbetween relating to other knights of Arthur's court.
As a whole, Le Morte d'Arthur is incredibly impressive, and if you are looking for a good place to start with regard to the story of King Arthur and his knights, then look no further because this has (albeit sometimes in brief) the whole lot; Lancelot and Guinevere, the sword in the stone, lady of the lake, excalibur, the holy grail, you name it. That is not to say however that there are not places where the compiled and concentrated nature of this text doesn't come through. For example, while many sections of the text are positively entralling, you will get sick of hearing about jousting very quickly, and some sections of the text are worse than others for this (Tristram's section is the worst for this). It was never enough to make me stop reading, but it did come to a point where I would inwardly shudder every time it was proclaimed that a great tournament was to be held. This is to be expected though. Sir. Thomas Malory was a knight writing in prison, not poetical masterclass, and this comes across in his prose, with the main part of this being a fixation on the jousting element of the legends.
Make no mistake though, when Malory is good, he is very good. The section on the quest for the holy grail and the chapter where Arthur decides to fight the Romans were my favourites. So if you are on the fence over whether this is worth reading or not, it is most certainly worth it. If you have even a passing interest in Arthurian legend, and particularly if you enjoy mediaeval texts, you will find this book incredibly enjoyable, and almost all subsequent adaptations of the Arthur story pay lip service to it.
Now a note on editions. This is a very late mediaeval text, and as such I would wholeheartedly recommend that everybody reads the real deal, since it is far easier to read than Chaucer, and in my opinion even easier to read than Shakespeare. So to that end, the "Malory Complete Works" edition edited by Vinaver that I have reviewed is the best, as it is based on the oldest extant manuscript (not Caxton's edition), and doesn't modernise all the spellings as in the other editions (except replacing the thorns and yoghs with modern letters). But honestly, read it anyway even if you can't obtain this edition. It most certainly lives up to its length!
As a whole, Le Morte d'Arthur is incredibly impressive, and if you are looking for a good place to start with regard to the story of King Arthur and his knights, then look no further because this has (albeit sometimes in brief) the whole lot; Lancelot and Guinevere, the sword in the stone, lady of the lake, excalibur, the holy grail, you name it. That is not to say however that there are not places where the compiled and concentrated nature of this text doesn't come through. For example, while many sections of the text are positively entralling, you will get sick of hearing about jousting very quickly, and some sections of the text are worse than others for this (Tristram's section is the worst for this). It was never enough to make me stop reading, but it did come to a point where I would inwardly shudder every time it was proclaimed that a great tournament was to be held. This is to be expected though. Sir. Thomas Malory was a knight writing in prison, not poetical masterclass, and this comes across in his prose, with the main part of this being a fixation on the jousting element of the legends.
Make no mistake though, when Malory is good, he is very good. The section on the quest for the holy grail and the chapter where Arthur decides to fight the Romans were my favourites. So if you are on the fence over whether this is worth reading or not, it is most certainly worth it. If you have even a passing interest in Arthurian legend, and particularly if you enjoy mediaeval texts, you will find this book incredibly enjoyable, and almost all subsequent adaptations of the Arthur story pay lip service to it.
Now a note on editions. This is a very late mediaeval text, and as such I would wholeheartedly recommend that everybody reads the real deal, since it is far easier to read than Chaucer, and in my opinion even easier to read than Shakespeare. So to that end, the "Malory Complete Works" edition edited by Vinaver that I have reviewed is the best, as it is based on the oldest extant manuscript (not Caxton's edition), and doesn't modernise all the spellings as in the other editions (except replacing the thorns and yoghs with modern letters). But honestly, read it anyway even if you can't obtain this edition. It most certainly lives up to its length!
April 29, 2017
«Замечательный» образец средневековой литературы.
Уже не раннее средневековье Гальфрида и Ненния, еще не современные Толкиен и Уайт.
Книга разделена на 7 малых книг, вроде и есть сквозной сюжет, но не всегда и не везде. Интерес представляет начало и конец, все что между совершенно ужасно и скучно.
Сначала про основное содержание. 90% книги представляет собой бесконечное перечисление героев, на каждой странице есть «прекрасная дама» и «рыцарь», есть «подвиг» и «турнир». Самое грустное что сюжеты всех подвигов очень маловариативны.
Невозможная скукота, такое нельзя представить в современном стиле.
Теперь про главную линию в книге – про Короля Артура.
За исключением срединной воды тут есть и развитие и драма и вся жизнь персонажа. Довольно интересно и, по крайней мере, несет ценность и разнообразие в сюжете.
По итогу очень странное впечатление, вроде и не жалеешь о прочитанном, но советовать бы никому не стал. Только для интересующихся.
Уже не раннее средневековье Гальфрида и Ненния, еще не современные Толкиен и Уайт.
Книга разделена на 7 малых книг, вроде и есть сквозной сюжет, но не всегда и не везде. Интерес представляет начало и конец, все что между совершенно ужасно и скучно.
Сначала про основное содержание. 90% книги представляет собой бесконечное перечисление героев, на каждой странице есть «прекрасная дама» и «рыцарь», есть «подвиг» и «турнир». Самое грустное что сюжеты всех подвигов очень маловариативны.
Невозможная скукота, такое нельзя представить в современном стиле.
Теперь про главную линию в книге – про Короля Артура.
За исключением срединной воды тут есть и развитие и драма и вся жизнь персонажа. Довольно интересно и, по крайней мере, несет ценность и разнообразие в сюжете.
По итогу очень странное впечатление, вроде и не жалеешь о прочитанном, но советовать бы никому не стал. Только для интересующихся.
February 18, 2017
I finally made it through. It took many years of false starts, then I recently realized I could get through it if I limited myself to one chapter a day no matter how short the chapter. That way I would not be overwhelmed by the endless repetitions of all these things: challenges to fight, fights, swords that cut through helmets to the "brain pan," the giving and with holding of names, bragging about valor, horny women, horny knights, casual sex by people who profess religious ideals without questioning the behavior or the ideals, King Mark and his lousy attitude, revenge, the boring tales of Trystamys, the obnoxious name La Beale Isode, the obnoxious word damoiselles, and, O fie o'nt, fie fie.
Two stars for the story, maybe, and one for the importance of this book in English literature, but I am never going to read it again. Into the box you go.
Two stars for the story, maybe, and one for the importance of this book in English literature, but I am never going to read it again. Into the box you go.
September 2, 2007
I read this in college and hated it, although I think that was because of an embarassing incident in the class rather than any flaw in the book itself. I started out loving the stories and trying to figure out the language (no standardized spelling here, folks), and by the end of the term wanted to throw this book out of the classroom window. Time passed, though, and I missed my little book of Malory and the great stories it contained. If you read "The Once and Future King," he refers to it often as where to go if you want to read the whole stories about King Arthur and his knights. They're all here, definitely. This is a must for anyone who enjoys the Arthurian legends.
February 16, 2016
Malory's comprehensive adaptation of the King Arthur story has been the gold standard in the English speaking world since its publication in the 15th century. Malory took the sprawling French cycles and winnowed them down to their essence, creating the definitive version of the Arthurian legend in the process. His work was the inspiration behind The Once and Future King and countless other retellings. Quite simply, this is the best single-volume book you can read if you want to read the King Arthur epic. 4.5 stars, highly recommended!
September 14, 2017
One of the great tragedies in the English language, it reveals more on every rereading. I used to think the chapter at the end, with Launcelot and Guenevere going into religious life, had a bit of a tacked-on quality, but it is vital to the completion of the tale. I am reminded of C. S. Lewis' observation in Surprised by Joy on his reading of Malory in his youth: "The iron in Malory, the tragedy of contrition, I did not yet at all perceive." I read a one-volume Vinaver edition, which included some useful notes and a very useful glossary at the back.
October 27, 2019
It's a little hard to rate a book like this because you can't really use the same things you might to rate a novel, or a nonfiction book that you're reading for enjoyment. This wasn't really an engrossing story in the normal way, and definitely wasn't an easy read a lot of the time, with the older English, but it was easier to understand than I had thought it might be, and it was really interesting to gain a deeper understanding of the Arthurian legends specifically, and how people and life have evolved since those times.
March 23, 2013
[Did not read the book of Tristan]
Slow start, but worth the read for Morte alone. I actually enjoyed the Holy Grail episode, because of its mystical tone. The tale of Sir Gareth would be the easiest to pick up- it's funny, fast, and follows the classic quest plot.
In terms of readability, the glossary at the black is lovely, but you really should just skim until you slide into it. Sound out difficult words- v/f and y/i are largely the same letter.
Slow start, but worth the read for Morte alone. I actually enjoyed the Holy Grail episode, because of its mystical tone. The tale of Sir Gareth would be the easiest to pick up- it's funny, fast, and follows the classic quest plot.
In terms of readability, the glossary at the black is lovely, but you really should just skim until you slide into it. Sound out difficult words- v/f and y/i are largely the same letter.
April 11, 2019
A really great insight into medieval literature and thinking and great to see some of the establishment of the King Arthur myths and stories. The 15th century English was a challenge, but one easily overcome and I loved to see the traces of danish throughout the books wording.
I read this whilst participating and listening to the Mythgard Academy class on this, which I highly recommend and is really the reason I could get trough this brick at all.
I read this whilst participating and listening to the Mythgard Academy class on this, which I highly recommend and is really the reason I could get trough this brick at all.
March 2, 2021
I don't think I would have enjoyed this nearly as much if I'd read a version with modernised spelling. I expected a very refined book, but this was actually very rough and earthy and mad. My only complaints are that it needed more wizards, and fewer jousts.
April 17, 2022
A really good complete works if you’re even able to read it. I despise my professor for making us read this version of it. I know I’m an English Major but I’m not a graduate student, this was a bit much.
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