A New Companion to Malory

348 Pages·2019·14.365 MB·English

by  Megan G. Leitch, Cory James Rushton (eds.)

C
Arthurian Studies O
M
SERIES EDITOR: Norris J. Lacey
P
A
N
I
OA
Malory’s Morte Darthur is now a canonical and widely-taught

NN
text. Recent decades have seen a transformation and expansion of
E
critical approaches in scholarship, as well as significant advances in T
OW
understanding its milieux: textual, literary, cultural and historical.
This volume adds to and updates the influential Companion of
1996, offering scholars, teachers and students alike a full guide to
the text and the author. The essays it contains provide a synthetic
overview of, and fresh perspectives on, the key questions about
and contexts connected with the Morte.
megan g. leitch is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at
Cardiff University.
cory james rushton is Associate Professor in the Department
of English at St Francis Xavier University, Canada.
Contributors: Dorsey Armstrong, Thomas H. Crofts, Siân Echard,
Rob Gossedge, Daniel Helbert, Amy S. Kaufman, Megan G. Leitch,
Andrew Lynch, Catherine Nall, Ralph Norris, Raluca L. Radulescu,
Lisa Robeson, Meg Roland, Cory James Rushton, Masako Takagi,
K. S. Whetter.
Cover image: ‘How Morgan le Fay Gave a Shield to Sir Tristram’,
ill. Aubrey Beardsley (1893–94).
A NEW COMPANION TO
Cover design: www.stay-creative.co.uk
AE
ND
DIT
CE
D
O
B
R
YY
J M
A
E
MG EDITED BY
EA
SN MEGAN G. LEITCH AND
RU G CORY JAMES RUSHTON
SH. LE
TI
OT
C
NH

ARTHURIAN STUDIES LXXXVII
A NEW COMPANION TO MALORY
ARTHURIAN STUDIES
ISSN 0261-9814
General Editor: Norris J. Lacy
Previously published volumes in the series
are listed at the back of this book
A NEW COMPANION TO MALORY
edited by
Megan G. Leitch and Cory James Rushton
D. S. BREWER
© Contributors 2019
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation
no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast,transmitted,
recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission of the copyright owner
First published 2019
D. S. Brewer, Cambridge
ISBN 978 1 84384 523 2
D. S. Brewer is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP12 3DF, UK
and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.
668 Mount Hope Ave, Rochester, NY 14620–2731, USA
website: www.boydellandbrewer.com
The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence
or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites
referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content
on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
This publication is printed on acid-free paper
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
List of Contributors ix
List of Abbreviations x
List of Editions xi
Introduction 1
Megan G. Leitch and Cory James Rushton
A Note on Malory’s Text 11
I The Morte Darthur: Text(s) and Contexts
1 Malory in Historical Context 15
Catherine Nall
2 Malory and His Sources 32
Ralph Norris
3 Writing the Morte Darthur:
Author, Manuscript and Modern Editions 53
Thomas H. Crofts and K. S. Whetter
4 Malory in Literary Context 79
Megan G. Leitch
5 Malory in Print 96
Siân Echard
II Approaches to Malory
6 Malory and Form 125
Cory James Rushton
7 Malory and Character 144
Dorsey Armstrong
vi CONTENTS
8 Malory and Gender 164
Amy S. Kaufman
9 Malory and Emotion 177
Andrew Lynch
10 Secular Malory 191
Lisa Robeson
11 Spiritual Malory 211
Raluca L. Radulescu
12 Malory and the Wider World 227
Meg Roland
III Malory’s Afterlives
13 Malory in Wartime Britain 253
Rob Gossedge
14 Malory in Japan 271
Masako Takagi
15 Malory in America 296
Daniel Helbert
Select Bibliography 317
Index 321
Illustrations
Chapter 5. Malory in Print, Siân Echard
Figure 1. Opening of Book II, in the John Rylands Library copy of Caxton’s
printing of the Morte, 1485, leaf 81. Copyright The University of
Manchester. 98
Figure 2. Balin drawing the sword, from the opening of Book II in the John
Rylands Library copy of Wynkyn de Worde’s printing of the Morte,
1498, leaf 56. Copyright The University of Manchester. 100
Figure 3. Title page to William Copland’s 1557 printing of the Morte,
featuring St George. With thanks to the Rauner Special Collections
Library, Dartmouth College. 102
Figure 4. Frontispiece to the Stansby/Bloom 1634; copy from the Folger
Shakespeare Library (STC 806 copy 1). Used by permission of the
Folger Shakespeare Library under a Creative Commons Attribution-
ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 105
Figure 5. Frontispiece and title page to volume 2 of the Walker and
Edwards printing of 1816. Image courtesy of Rare Books and Special
Collections, University of British Columbia Library. 108
Figure 6. Opening of Book VI in the Shakespeare Head Morte, 1933.
Copyright The University of Manchester. 115
Figure 7. Opening of Book II, from the Dent-Beardsley Morte, 1893–1894.
Image courtesy of Rare Books and Special Collections, The University
of British Columbia Library. 118
Chapter 12. Malory and the Wider World, Meg Roland
Figure 1. Hereford Map, c. 1300. Copyright The Dean and Chapter of
Hereford Cathedral and the Hereford Mappa Mundi Trust. 231
Figure 2. Ptolemy, Geographia [Geography], Florence, c. 1460–70. By
permission of the New York Public Library. 232
Figure 3. Petrus Roselli portolan chart, 1466. By permission of the James
Ford Bell Library, University of Minnesota. 235
viii ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 4. Detail, Roselli portolan chart. By permission of the James Ford
Bell Library, University of Minnesota. 236
The editors, contributors and publisher are grateful to all the institutions and
persons listed for permission to reproduce the materials in which they hold
copy right. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders; apologies
are offered for any omission, and the publisher will be pleased to add any neces-
sary acknowledgement in subsequent editions.