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Malory's Anatomy of Chivalry

Characterization in the Morte Darthur

Paul Rovang

This book is the first systematic study in decades of Malory’s development of his characters in the Morte Darthur. Focusing on sixteen key figures in the most important medieval English treatment of the Arthurian saga, it examines Malory’s thematic characterization of individual rulers, knights, and ladies in keeping with the twin trajectories of his history of the Round Table and fifteenth-century English history. Looking at how Malory develops his characters as exemplars of kingship, knighthood, and womanhood, the book traces the medieval author’s exploration of the values constituting chivalry as embodied in individual characters, a process that enabled him to formulate a vision of those values for his own troubled period of the Wars of the Roses. This book further explores the contribution Malory’s art of characterization makes to the literary and aesthetic power of the Morte Darthur. Each chapter’s focus on individual characters makes the book not only an integrated thematic overview, but also a useful reference for focused study of particular Arthurian figures. As such, the book is designed to meet the interests and needs of both professional scholars and students of Arthurian and medieval literature.

University Press Copublishing Division / Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

Pages: 242 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼

978-1-61147-778-8 • Hardback • November 2014 • $113.00 • (£87.00)

978-1-61147-780-1 • Paperback • May 2016 • $54.99 • (£42.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Medieval, History / Europe / Great Britain / General, Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh

Malory's Anatomy of Chivalry

Characterization in the Morte Darthur

Hardback

Paperback

Summary

This book is the first systematic study in decades of Malory’s development of his characters in the Morte Darthur. Focusing on sixteen key figures in the most important medieval English treatment of the Arthurian saga, it examines Malory’s thematic characterization of individual rulers, knights, and ladies in keeping with the twin trajectories of his history of the Round Table and fifteenth-century English history. Looking at how Malory develops his characters as exemplars of kingship, knighthood, and womanhood, the book traces the medieval author’s exploration of the values constituting chivalry as embodied in individual characters, a process that enabled him to formulate a vision of those values for his own troubled period of the Wars of the Roses. This book further explores the contribution Malory’s art of characterization makes to the literary and aesthetic power of the Morte Darthur. Each chapter’s focus on individual characters makes the book not only an integrated thematic overview, but also a useful reference for focused study of particular Arthurian figures. As such, the book is designed to meet the interests and needs of both professional scholars and students of Arthurian and medieval literature.

Details

University Press Copublishing Division / Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

Pages: 242 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼

978-1-61147-778-8 • Hardback • November 2014 • $113.00 • (£87.00)

978-1-61147-780-1 • Paperback • May 2016 • $54.99 • (£42.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Medieval, History / Europe / Great Britain / General, Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh

Author

Paul Rovang is professor of English at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part I: Exemplars of Kingship
Chapter 1: Arthur
Chapter 2: Mark

Part II: Exemplars of Knighthood
Famous Knights
Chapter 3: Gawain
Chapter 4: Lancelot
Chapter 5: Tristram

Unassuming Knights
Chapter 6: Galahad and Perceval
Chapter 7: Gareth

Critical Knights
Chapter 8: Kay
Chapter 9: Dinadan
Chapter 10: Mordred

A Saracen Knight
Chapter 11: Palomides

Part III: Exemplars of Womanhood
Chapter 12: Guinevere
Chapter 13: Isolde
Chapter 14: Morgan le Faye
Chapter 15: The Lady of the Lake

Epilogue
Works Cited
About the Author

Reviews

Each of this book's 15 chapters treats a character found in Malory’s Morte Darthur . . . As the title reveals, this study of Malory’s construction of character focuses on the roles that chivalry, kingship, and womanhood play in shaping a character’s trajectory over the course of the text. Rovang is a good close reader of Malory, and . . . the chapters benefit from his familiarity with the characters, plots, subplots, and themes that abound in the Morte. Some of the especially good chapters (e.g., those on Palomides and The Lady of the Lake) serve as fine introductions to the characters and what scholars have said about them. . . .Rovang . . . demonstrate[s] the interconnectedness of the characters.
— Choice Reviews

In Malory’s Anatomy of Chivalry: Characterization in the Morte Darthur, Paul R. Rovang provides an illuminating and useful study of sixteen characters in the Morte Darthur. . . .This broad focus, concentrating on less well-known characters, male and female, alongside the principal Arthurian figures, is a strength of this study. . . .[T]hroughout he makes use of well-chosen examples and quotations and offers some excellent close readings of his materials. . . .In Malory’s Anatomy of Chivalry, Rovang has…produced an engaging, well-written, and thought-provoking study, which will be of value to both experienced and first-time readers of the Morte Darthur.
— Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies

Rovang’s book is a welcome addition to Malory studies. . . . this book has many strengths and is one that I am sure that I will turn to again and again for consultation in years ahead.
— Journal of English and Germanic Philology

Malory's Anatomy of Chivalry

Characterization in the Morte Darthur

Paul Rovang

Malory's Anatomy of Chivalry

Characterization in the Morte Darthur

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