Some Persistent Mysteries of Malory’s Texts and Sources

Despite a century of dedicated scholarship, some textual problems remain in Malory’s Morte Darthur that have never been satisfactorily explained. Although these mysteries tend to be rather small, seeking the most probable rational solution to them increases our understanding of Malory as an author, as well as the Morte Darthur as a medieval masterpiece, in addition to the connection between the two. This paper offers explanations of the word amyvestial, of unknown etymology, Sir Gareth’s ungrammatical sobriquet Beaumains and other small but baffling mysteries of Malory’s text.

‘Ile be the bane of Cornwall Kinge’: The ballad of King Arthur and King Cornwall and the relentless pursuit of vengeance in the pre-modern Arthurian tradition

This paper concerns the narrative logic behind the disregard for the life of King Arthur’s opponent in the seventeenth-century ballad of King Arthur and King Cornwall. It approaches its subject through comparisons with the last book of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, Le pèlerinage de Charlemagne, Le petit Poucet, Jack and the Beanstalk and the History of Mother Twaddle, and the Marvellous Atchievements [sic] of her Son Jack. It argues that by associating Arthur’s rival, King Cornwall, with magic objects and a fire-breathing creature called Burlow Beanie, as well as placing Cornwall’s domain away from Arthur’s, the ballad marks Cornwall as ‘other’ and, in so doing, implies that ordinary moral considerations do not apply when it comes to actions such as the killing of Cornwall. The article additionally argues that a major difference between the ballad and the last book of Le Morte Darthur, where much of the action is driven by factors that also feature prominently in King Arthur and King Cornwall, lies in the fact that in Le Morte Darthur none of the major actors are marked as ‘other’ – highlighting the nature of the tragedy that unfolds as one of destructive internal conflict.

Peredur and the Problem of Inappropriate Questions

This article reopens the question of the relationship between the medieval Welsh version of the Grail narrative, the Historia Peredur vab Efrawc, and the French Conte du Graal of Chrétien de Troyes. It explores the seeming inconsistencies in the Welsh tale’s presentation of the Grail procession, and suggests that the hero’s actions, and in particular his reticence in asking questions about the procession, should be read in the context of medieval Welsh customs and legal tradition. The article concludes with an exploration of the implications of the proposed interpretation for the reading of Historia Peredur as a postcolonial narrative.

‘Britones a Troianis duxerunt originem’: Historia Meriadoci, De ortu Waluuanii and their Galfridian companion-text in BL MS Cotton Faustina B VI

When a reader encounters the Latin romances Historia Meriadoci and De ortu Waluuanii in BL MS Cotton Faustina B VI, the romances are only the first two in a set of three texts copied by the same scribe on the same occasion. The third text, following directly on De ortu Waluuanii, is an abstract of books 1–6 of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s De gestis Britonum. While valuable in its own right as a witness to the DGB’s use and manuscript circulation, the abstract is presented and investigated here for what it may tell us about the Latin romances’ own transmission and reception, which have long been shrouded in mystery. As I argue, the abstract’s juxtaposition with the romances is no accident, and figures importantly in the romances’ presentation. Much as the opening stanzas of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight set the stage for King Arthur, in fact, the Latin synopsis begins with the fall of Troy and Brutus’ foundation of Britain before (much more expansively than the Gawain-poet) recounting the war and wrack of early British history, concluding with Merlin’s revelation to Vortigern of the warring dragons. In this and other ways this Galfridian abstract causes the Latin romances to quicken with correspondences to Geoffrey’s work; this effect may even suggest for the romances a date of composition not distant from that of the DGB itself. By exploring the interpretive possibilities of this widened manuscript context, the present paper seeks to initiate a re-examination of these mysterious Latin romances in relation to their Galfridian companion-text. This article concludes with an edition of the abstract itself, which until now has not been edited or translated.

Knight Fever: Sickness, masculinity and narrative absence in the Mort Artu, Béroul’s Tristan and Thomas of Britain’s Tristan

The ideal knight protagonist of high medieval romance should be capable of engaging actively in chivalric activities, whether martial or amatory. What happens, then, when knight protagonists fall ill? Illness presents a problem: the knight loses his ability to act and is no longer in control of his own body. This article examines the fates of knights who fall ill in three Arthurian romances of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: the Mort Artu, Thomas of Britain’s Tristan and Béroul’s Tristan. Illness has a marked effect on the presence of knights, both narratologically and to other characters in the text. When knights fall ill, they are temporarily excised from the narrative until their ability to be active is restored. An exception to this illness-absence paradigm occurs when the heroes of romance feign illness: at such junctures, these men are still exemplifying the agency and resourcefulness required of an effective hero, and the narrative maintains its focus on them at these moments regardless of how other characters might be treating them.

Surprised by Percival: Arthurian Transtextuality and the Reader in George MacDonald’s Phantastes

The Arthurian aspects of George MacDonald’s Phantastes (1858) have been overlooked in Arthurian studies and downplayed in MacDonald scholarship. To fill this gap, the first section of this article examines the opening paratexts of the first edition (title, subtitles, epigraphs) tracing their Arthurian echoes and allusions. The second section focuses on a key architext, Sir Percival’s quest for the Holy Grail, suggesting that Anodos rather than the unnamed knight is the character most informed by Percival. Simultaneously, the article draws on reader response theory and Derrida’s poststructuralism to argue that Phantastes is a highly self-reflexive, metafictional work intended to disrupt normal reading and writing practices in order to initiate the reader into a more open, transformative mode of reading.