An exploration of how Malory deals with the themes of love, marriage and adultery, revealing the socially conservative vantage of the gentry and nobility. Marriage in the Middle Ages encompassed two crucial but sometimes conflicting dimensions: a private companionate relationship, and a public social institution, the means whereby heirs were produced and land, wealth, power and political rule were transferred. This study examines the concept of marriage as seen in the Morte Darthur, moving beyond it to look at "adulterous" and other male/female relationships, and their impact on the world of the RoundTable in general. Key points addressed are the compromise achieved in the "Tale of Sir Gareth" between natural, youthful passion and the gentry's pragmatic view of marriage; the problems of King Arthur's marriage in light of bothpolitical need and the difficulty of the queen's infertility and adultery; and the repercussions of Lancelot's adultery in the tragedies of two marriageable daughters, Elaine of Astolat and Elaine of Corbin. Finally, the author reveals and considers in detail (focusing on dynastic dysfunction in three generations of Pendragon men: Uther, Arthur and Mordred) the myth of benevolent paternity by which men, whether born legitimate of bastard, were united through the Round Table. KAREN CHEREWATUK is Professor of English at St Olaf College, Minnesota.

Arthurian Literature has established its position as the home for a great diversity of new research into Arthurian matters. It delivers fascinating material across genres, periods, and theoretical issues. TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT This issue offers stimulating studies of a wide range of Arthurian texts and authors, from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century, among which is the first winner of the Derek Brewer Essay Prize, awarded to a fascinating exploration of Ragnelle's strangeness in The Weddyng of Syr Gawen and Dame Ragnelle. It includes an exploration of Irish and Welsh cognates and possible sources for Merlin; Bakhtinian analysis of Geoffrey of Monmouth's playful discourse; and an account of the transmission of Geoffrey's text into Old Icelandic. In the Middle English tradition, there is an investigation of material Arthuriana in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, followed by explorations of shame in Malory's Morte Darthur. The post-medieval articles see one paper devoted to the paratexts of sixteenth-century French Arthurian publishers; one to eighteenth-century Arthuriana; and one to a range of nineteenth-century rewritings of the virginity of Galahad and Percival's Sister. Two Notes close this volume: one on Geoffrey's Vita Merlini and a possible Irish source, and one on a likely source for Malory's linking of Trystram with the Book of Hunting and Hawking in an early form of The Book of St Albans.

Arthurian Literature has established its position as the home for a great diversity of new research into Arthurian matters. It delivers fascinating material across genres, periods, and theoretical issues. TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT The studies collected in this volume demonstrate the enduring vitality of the Arthurian legend in a wide range of places, times and media. Chretien's Conte du Graal features first in a study of the poem's place in its Anglo-Norman context, followed by four essays on Malory's Morte Darthur. Two of these deal with the significance of wounds and wounding in Malory's text, while the third explores the problematic aspects of sleep and the "slepynge knight" in that same romance. The fourth considers "transformative female corpses" as, quite literally, the embodiment of critical comment on the chivalric community in the Morte Darthur. There follow two studies of the Arthurian legend captured in material objects: the first concerns the early twelfth-century images on a marble column from the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, the second a twentieth-century tapestry created by Lady Trevelyan for the family home at Wallington Hall. The volume closes with an essay that brings us into the twenty-first century, with an assessment of Kaamelott, an irreverent French Pythonesque television series. ElizabethArchibald is Professor of English Studies at Durham University, and Principal of St Cuthbert's Society; David F. Johnson is Professor of English at Florida State University, Tallahassee. Contributors: Karen Cherewatuk,Tara Foster, Joan Tasker Grimbert, Erin Kissick, Irit Ruth Kleiman, Megan Leitch, Roger Simpson, K.S. Whetter.

The motif of death and dying traced through over a thousand years of the English Arthurian tradition. It is arguably the tragic end to Arthur's kingdom which gives the myth its exceptional resonance and power. The essays in this volume explore the presentation of death and dying in Arthurian literature and film produced in Englandand America from the middle ages to the modern day. Authors, texts and topics covered include Geoffrey of Monmouth, the chronicle tradition, and the alliterative Morte Arthure; Gawain and the Green Knight, Ywain and Gawain, the stanzaic Morte Arthur, and Malory's Morte Darthur; Tennyson's Idylls, Pyle's retelling of the myth for American children, David Jones, T.H. White, Donald Barthelme, Rosalind Miles and Parke Godwin. Featured films include Knight Rider, Excalibur, First Knight, and King Arthur. CONTRIBUTORS: Sian Echard, Edward Donald Kennedy, Karen Cherewatuk, Michael W. Twomey, K. S. Whetter, Thomas Crofts, MichaelWenthe, Lisa Robeson, Cory James Rushton, Janina P. Traxler, James Noble, Julie Nelson Couch, Samantha Rayner, Kevin J. Harty

Explored in this book are women's contributions to letter writing in western Europe from the sixth to the sixteenth centuries. The essays represent the first attempt to chart medieval women's achievements in epistolarity, and the contributions to this volume situate the women writers in a historical context and employ a variety of feminist approaches.

`[The series is an indispensable component of any historical or Arthurian library.' NOTES AND QUERIES This latest issue of Arthurian Literature continues the tradition of the journal in combining theoretical studies with editions of primary Arthurian texts. There is a special focus on Chretien de Troyes, with articles considering his identity, providing a new reading of Le Chevalier de la Charrete, and giving an account of a discovery of an important new fragment of the First Continuation. Other essays deal with Glastonbury, at the heart of the English Arthurian legend;the Scottish treatment of the Arthur story in the Reformation period; and the Morte Darthur in the context of fifteenth-century chivalric encyclopaedias. Contributors: SARAH KAY, NICK CORBYN, LISA JEFFERSON, AELRED WATKIN, JEANNE KROCHALIS, DAVID ALLAN, KAREN CHEREWATUK