2007-08 AM Le Morte Darthur (1485)
- Time: Wednesdays 4-6 pm
The legendary King Arthur, the mysteries around his sword Excalibur, the stories of his quasi democratic Round Table, Arthur's tragic struggle between love, treason and an all too powerful enemy invading the British Isles have inspired the European audience at least since the early 12th century. The wave of Provencal, Middle High German and Middle English versified Arthurian romances composed around 1200 merged into the production of the first modern European prose romances in the 15th century which culminated - another century later - in the Amadis, the "arch romance" devoured by Don Quixote. The 17th and 18th centuries distanced themselves both from the erroneous histories related here and from the genre of romances they had inspired. A new interest arose at the beginning of the 19th century with the new nationalism of the age, its self proclaimed "romanticism", its quest for lost identities one could hope to find in the "dark ages". A rediscovery of "medieval" texts followed in which the Arthurian world offered the most interesting mythical images; it is today omnipresent as a cultural phenomenon with a mass production of fantasy novels, video games and movies.
The course will focus on William Caxton's edition of Sir Thomas Malroy's Le Morte Darthur first published in 1485 - most certainly not the elegant, witty and beautiful reading earlier versified romances provided, yet the text which most effectively compiled the plots of the preceding romantic production.
Why was there an audience for this book at the "beginning" of the "Modern Period"? How did it relate to the preceding production of romances and histories? How does it compare to the fashionable Amadis the next century was to love so much? How does it read within the context of the 19th and 20th century renaissance of the Arthurian world? The course will offer a cultural history of the text and its fictional world.
Topics
Those who are planning to join the seminar may contribute thoughts on what they'd like to do in the following list:
- Sources in Europe's mythology and history
- The renaissance of chivalry at the beginning of the modern era
- Love and gender relations in Malory's Morte Darthur
- The text which shaped our view of the medieval world: Malory's King Arthur and Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court (1889).
- From Fantasy to video game Arthur's table round in modern culture. See en.wikipedia.org for modern adaptations of the sujet.
Texts
I originally intended to base the seminar on Caxton's fist edition published in 1485 as offered by EEBO:
A modernised-spelling version of Caxton's edition - and that speaks against it - is offered as a Penguin classic (Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur. Ed. Cowen, Janet (1970). Introduction by Lawlor, John. 2 vols. London: Penguin. ISBN 0-679-60099-X, ISBN 0-14-043044-X.)
I offer an edition of Caxton's text with the original spelling (scroll down to get beyond the gothic letters) and pagination under the following link:
A paper copy will be made available at Wersig's copy shop.
The standard alternative to Caxton's edition is the Winchester Manuscript as published in the critical Norton edition. The problem is here the wild layout (an attempt to reproduce graphical aspects of the original handwritten text) and the fact that the manuscript remained unknown till its rediscovery in 1934. I favour Caxton's text, as it was actually read. It is the text which unfolded the influence we will be interested in.
My recommendation is the Penguin-edition for easy reading or, better my web-edition.
