Know ye much of Le Morte d'Arthur?

Thomas Malory's masterpiece Le Morte d'Arthur is a curiously under discussed work. It is not hard to see why it is so neglected: it's impossibly long, features archaic grammar and language, and seems, to the untrained eye, to be a series of loose-to-disconnected stories. Further, while King Arthur has firmly been placed in a transcendent position in our imaginations, Malory's work is almost never assigned in classrooms. Students are more likely to read Tennyson or T.H. White's Sword in the Stone than Malory. But Malory is not insignificant in the imagination of Tennyson, White, Williams, etc. Really, anyone who wrote about Arthur after Malory is indebted to him.

I would argue that, despite his relative insignificance in the canon, Malory is worth reading. His masterpiece has permanently altered my life. Every time I reread this book I walk away a changed man, always changed for the better. But there are some things in this text that are not intuitive. It is, perhaps, wise to warn you before reading about a few particular quirks of Malory and his style that will help you more quickly get what's going on in the text.

I intend to go over a few key narrative and thematic features of the book, but the language is also very charming. I'd also recommend this excellent webpage: Perilous.dev

Anachronisms

He is breathtaking in scope, collapsing over a thousand years of human history into a vibrant, anachronistic tapestry. Because of this, however, reading Malory can be confusing. The work is supposedly set in the 5th century, but yet it features decidedly late medieval armor and warfare. The England of Malory is decidedly Christianized, perhaps even Post-Christian (more on that later), but yet Malory still places it in a past so distant that paganism seems right around the corner. Some people argue that Malory is to be read as telling the whole story of England's history by having his narrative progress through time, beginning in Roman antiquity and ending in the War of the Roses (a war of which Malroy was veteran). I do not find that read useful, but rather prefer to see this book as representing the mythic, knightly past taken altogether, like how I would have thought of medievalism as a child, "castle times." It is charming to think that for me, 600 years removed from the book's publication, the mythic past is nearly as anachronsitic and fantastic as it was for Malory, removed by 900 years from the supposed setting of his work.

Moral Development

In many ways, this work describes the rise, flowering, and fall of a culture. As a result, the first section is seemingly devoted to Malory's characters learning morality. Do not be surprised if, when reading, you find yourself confused at the immoral behavior of these knights who we know become the "flower of Chivalry." They, like you, need to learn the moral rules of their world. Thus this story features the construction of the knight in shining armor, but he is starting from scratch.

Subversion

We have a tendancy to identify stories of knights and damsels with moral and narrative simplicity. You will find none of that here. These characters are shockingly complex, almost modern at times in their multifacited motivations. Good and Evil, while vibrant and real, are all twisted around each other. This isn't to say the book features the bugbear of moral relativism, but it features the far more interesting specter of moral complexity. This is also true of the narrative. Every modern playful inversion or subversion of knightly tropes (what if the knight were secretly evil? What if the woman were the rescuer of the man, what if the knight, rather than the villain, is the one who loses hope?) is already present here in this work. There is no new subversion of knighthood that isn't also found in Malory. I find it comforting to know that none of our modern cleverness would surprise this 600 year old text, but it's important to go in knowing that Malory is far more capable of subtlety and irony than you may be tempted to believe at first blush. Every character is more nuanced than you would think, every read is complicated.

Make Thee Ready, for I Shall Have Ado With You

These knights fight all the time. Whenver a knight sees another on the road, they have to fight. Whenever one of them sneezes too loud, it feels like they have to fight. This is one of the most culturally foreign parts of this book, but I think it's worth examining what might be going on here. There are a number of possible explanations of this; perhaps Malory just wants to see his favorite knights go head to head; but the most interesting one to me is this:

Malory's world is fealty-driven. This fealty is established in a constellation of nodes: morality, succession, friendship, nobility, and strength. But to determine strength, we must have a clear rank of who is the most powerful knight. When a knight challenges another to joust, he is attempting to figure out where he and his opponent rank on the hierarchy of knights, which allows him to best know his relation to this knight. This is important as a means of ensuring peace (surprisingly enough). Once you figure out where you stand, who you are under and over, you have no question as to what your place is in the power structure. You no longer feel the need to attempt to scheme, or overthrow, or duel the people around you. It seems, perhaps, macho and violent (which it is) but it is also rational, and helps keep order enough to prevent constant warfare.

Christianity, Paganism, and Post-Christianity

This work is a deeply religious work. Every corner of the forest has a religious hermit, or a chapel, or an abbey. But this work also feels very removed from the practice of Christianity at times. Some castles are ruled by kings with a strange custom that guides them which often feels like the blood sacrifices or ritualistic combat of ancient pagan social order. It can be tempting to read this book as a story about the Christian-izing of Europe, and to read those weird, wild corners of Malory's world as vestiges of that old pagan order. That read has merit at times, but the wild edges of Malory seem, to me, more to be post-Christian; corners that are aware of Christianity, featuring old chapels and monastaries, but seem to have widely abandoned their Christian faith. Perhaps this post-crisis religious landscape was familiar to Malory, who lived and seemingly fought in the War of the Roses, a tragic collapse of order. Or, perhaps, Malory simply cannot imagine a landscape, pagan or otherwise, that isn't littered with hermits and chapels and priests. Either way, Malory's world is a world with small, thriving pockets of civilization, religion, and holiness, but these pockets are very much islands, loosely connected by dangerous roads, dark forests, and cruel kingdoms.