The Norton Anthology of English Literature only has a few excerpts from the book but I happened to have bought a nice leatherbound edition with Aubrey Beardsley's illustrations from Barnes and Noble recently so I figured I'd pause my read-through of the Anthology to read Le Morte d'Arthur in its entirety again. I feel like I didn't appreciate it the first time I read it.
The image on the cover is not by Aubrey Beardsley but by an artist named Ray Caramanna, apparently created for this edition printed just last year and published by Canterbury Classics, a company headquartered right here in San Diego, California. I got excited wondering if the book was actually printed in the U.S. but I read on and found, of course, it was printed overseas, in India, for which San Diego claims all the glory.
The interior has the beautiful Aubrey Beardsley illustrations that serve as perfect examples of the late Victorian Art Nouveau movement while also seeming perfectly medieval.
Le Morte d'Arthur is Malory's influential 15th century compendium of most of the famous English and French stories of King Arthur and his court from throughout the Middle Ages, united in a single narrative as a prose work by Malory. The reader here finds the quests and misadventures of King Arthur, Merlin, and the Knights of the Round Table conveniently united in one smoothly written work. At times it can seem repetitive, perhaps because Malory adapts multiple works that where inspired by each other, but the context invites the reader to draw comparisons. I just finished reading Book VII, which is the story of Sir Gareth of Orkney, a character created by Malory by combining a few similar characters, all sons of the Queen of Orkney, Arthur's sister Morgawse (not Morgan le Fey, who's another character). I always think of Gareth as a kind of prototypical Mary Sue. Malory constructed Gareth by taking only the positive traits of omitted characters. Gareth is able to defeat all other knights in combat except for Lancelot, but even with Lancelot the result is a draw and Lancelot and Arthur both have great affection for him.
For reasons that are never clear, Gareth conceals his identity when he first comes to Arthur's court in Caerleon, and suffers Sir Kay to bestow upon him the nickname of Beaumains ("pretty hands") and is put to work in the kitchen. When a damosel called Linet arrives asking for a knight to escort her to a castle where her sister, Dame Lionesse, is besieged, it's Gareth who volunteers. Linet is disgusted by the kitchen knave and refuses to recognise his worth even after he bests a series of fearsome knights, each named for the colour of their armour and accoutrements (Green Knight, Blue Knight, Red Knight). My favourite part of the story is the last segment, after Gareth rescues Lionesse and the two fall in love. There are two weird, dreamlike moments. In one, Gareth obtains a magic ring that causes his armour to spontaneously change colour throughout a jousting tournament, and in the other, he and Lionesse repeatedly try to have sex before they're married but the ever ornery Linet prevents it by having some kind of spectral or zombie knight attack Gareth while he's in bed with Lionesse. Gareth beheads the assailant only for Linet to set the head back on the body, reviving it.
This story could be taken as an endorsement of chastity and the sanctity of marriage but it sure feels a lot more like Malory railing against prudish custom.
I see to-day that Gareth is a girl in Japan, in the Fate/Grand Order video game. That's kind of ironic, I guess.
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