Arthurian Intertextualities: Misreading and Rereading Malory's Morte Darthur and the Alliterative and Stanzaic Mortes

Arthurian Intertextualities offers new readings of Malory’s Morte as well as the two English poems that most influenced him. Tolhurst and Whetter situate Malory’s Arthur story in the context of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century England. Combining these contexts with intertextual analysis of scenes and characters from Le Morte Darthur and both sources, the authors illustrate the full extent of Malory’s debt to these two English poems while making a stronger case for Malory’s artistry—and the stanzaic-poet’s artistry—than previous scholarship has acknowledged. These new readings demand a reassessment of Arthurian women, kingship, and warfare and heroism, including reconsidering the alliterative-poet’s attitude to war and to Arthur as conqueror. The authors also offer a spirited defense of Malory’s Guenevere, who remains frequently maligned by scholars, and argue for Palomydes’s acceptance by his Round Table Fellowship. Arthurian Intertextualities will appeal to readers who are interested in the book that serves as the source for most of the Arthuriana (whether novels, plays, works of art, or films) in today’s world: Le Morte Darthur.