A Companion to Malory.

A Companion to Malory. Ed. by ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD and A. S. G. Edwards. (Arthurian Studies, 37) Cambridge: Brewer. 1996.xv+262 pp. [pound]29.50.

The editors of this welcome introduction to Malory studies divide their material into three sections. The seven essays in Part i, 'Malory in Context', consider general literary and cultural issues, while Part ii offers a series of fairly conventional readings of the action and themes of the different sections of the Morte Darthur. Part iii, entitled 'Posterity', consists of only one essay, A. S. G. Edwards's entertaining, if brief, survey of the history of the editing of the Morte and some of the literature it has inspired, and a basic bibliography on Malory studies, which concludes the volume.

Part I addresses aspects of Malory's work that have generated much critical interest in recent years, and is perhaps the most satisfyingly engaging section of the book. It begins with a characteristically careful comparison by Carol Meale of the organization of the text in the Winchester manuscript and in Caxton's and Vinaver's editions, which demonstrates ways in which editorial practice constructs particular meanings for the Morte. Richard Barber then provides an accessible overview of Continental European and English historical and literary contexts for chivalry, and traces the importance of the interrelation of these contexts in Malory's work. Elizabeth Edwards's witty and thought-provoking discussion of 'The Place of Women in the Morte Darthur' encompasses, in its exploration of the ambivalent representation of women, a range of observation on the nature of romance space, the importance of adultery to the Arthurian plot, and the nature of the 'feminine' in Malory. Felicity Riddy's stylish contribution, 'Contextualizing Le Morte Darthur: Empire and Civil War', adroitly aligns the different layers of historicity implicit and explicit in the Morte with the historical concerns and anxieties of the fifteenth-century gentry audience for which it was written. Terence McCarthy's tracing of Malory's literary sources and Jeremy Smith's analysis of aspects of language and style are both informed by an emphasis on Malory's indebtedness to English models and precedents. P. J. C. Field's chapter describes the surviving documentation relating to Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel, and supplies select bibliography on the debate surrounding the identity of the author of the Morte.

The essays in Part II have to function at least in part as introductory synopses, with the result that some of the difficulties of and contrasts between the constitutent elements of the Morte are inevitably glossed over or hurried through. Elizabeth Archibald has scarcely space to do more than draw attention to how Malory introduces key elements, such as adventure, destiny, family, magic, and 'worship', and to signal a difference between Arthur's Roman campaign against the Emperor Lucius, and the more confused and confusing 'beginnings' of the opening Tale. Barbara Nolan brackets the Tales of Sir Gareth and of Sir Lancelot together as modifications of French romance genres, the 'roman d'aventure' and the tale of the 'fair unknown' or 'bel inconnu', and concentrates on their value as narratives of chivalric virtue, but does not investigate in any depth either the difference in narrative structure of each Tale, nor the specifics of the social constructions of identity to which each hero is subject.

Helen Cooper's clear account of the ties and fissures, the disjunctions and continuities, of The Book of Sir Tristram, provides students with a useful tool for finding their way through this difficult text, and the appendix outlining the narrative structure of this section of the book looks especially helpful. Jill Mann recapitulates and consolidates her earlier seminal work on knightly physical and ethical integrity in the Morte, with an eloquent illumination of how the physical relates to the spiritual in Malory's Grail quest. C. D. Benson summarizes the final sections of the Morte in such a way as draws special attention to their 'human' interest.

There is much here that will be attractive to students of the Morte, particularly to someone reading Malory for the first time, although the editorial decision to supply only a highly selective bibliography seems rather limiting, especially as there is no strong representation of more recent work (some of the individual essays, too, might have used more up-to-date bibliography). The editors could also have taken the opportunity to direct beginners to journals in which material on Malory regularly appears and/or is reviewed, such as the Bibliographical Bulletin of the International Arthurian Society, Arthurian Literature, and Arthuriana, to get a sense of the continuing critical debates around this subject. These essays offer a lucid account of contemporary critical perspectives on Malory and collectively raise interesting questions about their terminology that the reader can pursue independently, such as the issue of what constitutes 'Englishness', or the criteria for textual 'unity': one only misses more explicit discussion of the directions Malory studies might take in the future.