This volume of essays is aimed at advancing the appreciation of Malory, an author who has always been enjoyed by the common reader, but is still sometimes underestimated by the critics. Despite an increasing number of articles on Malory, there is a need for a general survey of recent research, which l> Aspects of Malory /l> provides. The volume opens with a note by the late Professor Vinaver on Malory's prose, and three essays on Malory's Englishness and his English sources, including an essay by P. J. C. Field which argues for an English rather than a French origin for the l>Tale of...

Dr Morris examines how the legend grew through the retelling of what medieval writers believed was the story of an historical figure, based not on some lost Welsh biography, but on Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, the authorised' version of Arthur's career. She looks at his antecedents, the story of his conception and birth, and his accession, moving on to discuss his warfare, his role in peacetime, his relationships with his family, his personal attributes, and his problematical death, showing how Arthur remains a distinct character in medieval literature despite...

This volume, a festschrift for Professor A, H. Diverres, has been included in the Arthurian Studies series because it contains highly important new work on the medieval aspects of Arthurian legend, ranging from Rachel Bromwich's essay on the Celtic elements in Arthurian romance and A.O.H Jarman's study of Arthurian allusions in the Black Book of Carmarthen to examinations of the Spanish and French romances of the 15th century. There are five papers on the romances of Chretien de Troyes, including pieces by Tony Hunt, Kenneth Varty and Charles Foulon, two on Welsh and German romances...

The Romance of Ydersurvives in a unique manuscript in Cambridge University Library, and has only once been edited; no translation survives. Yet it is a highly interesting work, reflecting a tradition which reaches back to the beginnings of Arthurian romance in the early 12th century; it is linked to the famous Arthurian sculpture on the cathedral at Modena, and contains an episode which foreshadows the temptation scene in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, while elsewhere Celtic material is much in evidence as the basis of the tale. It is also close in style and sometimes in content to the work...

The revival of interest in Arthurian legend in the 19th century was a remarkable phenomenon, apparently at odds with the spirit of the age. Tennyson was widely criticised for his choice of a medieval topic; yet The Idylls of the Kingwere accepted as the national epic, and a flood of lesser works was inspired by them, on both sides of the Atlantic. Elisabeth Brewer and Beverly Taylor survey the course of Arthurian literature from 1800 to the present day, and give an account of all the major English and American contributions. Some of the works are well-known, but there are also a host of names...

The setting of medieval Arthurian romance, as typified by Malory's Morte Darthur, plays an important part in the creation of the atmosphere of the stories, and in intensifying the drama of the action. Professor Whitaker looks at the Arthurianworld which Malory inherited form his sources and to which he added his own details, and examines its different aspects: castles and forests, kingdoms and empires, showing how these diverge from reality to meet the particular requirements of romance, how new political and temporal relationships are set up for the same reason, and how it was shaped by the...

The publication of this book is an event of some importance in Arthurian studies. The Prose Tristanwas one of the most widely read works in medieval France; written between 1215 and 1235, it continued to be copied until the end of the Middle Ages and its popularity lasted another hundred years in printed editions. It was in fact in prose rather than in poetic form that the legend was known - Dr Curtis is to be warmly congratulated on undertaking this important task.' ERASMUS (BRIAN WOLEDGE)This three volume critical edition of the Prose Tristan, based on a complete collation of all the...

Renee Curtis's three-volume critical edition of the Prose Tristan is the only edition of this very important medieval work ever published; until the first volume appeared in 1963, the work was only accessible in the form of a few fragments which had been edited and a summary of the romance made by E. Loseth in 1891. Dr Curtis's edition is based on a complete collation of all the manuscripts and this led her to choose the Carpentras manuscript 404 as the basis of her edition. This second volume appeared in1976. Professor Brian Woledge, the eminent medievalislt, wrote of the first volume in...

The essays in this volume, a Festschrift for Professor Kenneth Varty, are centred on the relatively unexplored theme of rewards and punishments in French Arthurian romance and the medieval lyric. The Arthurian studies range over verse (Beroul, Chretien, Jean Renart, the Roman de Silence) and prose (Robert de Boron, the Queste del Saint Graal, Perlesvaus, Lancelot and the Tristan/), reflecting a variety of different approaches, from an examination of the legal background to the work of Beroul to an iconographical survey of hitherto undiscussed and unpublished Tristan illustrations to close...

No Arthurian critic will be able to ignore this book which gathers together so much diverse material and skilfully brings out unexpected links between versions widely separated in time and country of origin.' MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW Cei is one of the most puzzling figures in the development of the Arthurian legend: a hero beyond compare in the early Welsh sources, his appearances in later Arthurian literature are frequently associated with comic defeat in combat, objectionable outspokenness, and sometimes with more serious misdeeds. This study assesses Cei from his native Welsh context to his...