some, brave, and clever but unrecognized. He achieves
success by defeating foes older and more experienced
than he, winning his beloved, and establishing his
identity and his place in society. This has been termed
a version of the “family drama,” common in fairy tale
and romance. It also illustrates the Malorian themes of
bravery, noble bearing, and courtesy.
There follows the long section, over a third of the
whole work, centered on the story of Tristram and
Isolde, with so many other knights and adventures inter-
mingled that it is impossible to summarize adequately.
The ancient tragedy of Tristram’s and Isoldes obsessive
mutual infatuation had already been diluted by Malory’s
French sources, and at the end of Malory’s version the
lovers retire to adulterous bliss in Lancelot’s castle of
Joyous Gard. Tristram is here an adventurous knight
similar and almost equal to Lancelot. He has a jesting
companion, Sir Dinadan, who brings commonsensi-
cal skepticism to the craziness of knight-errantry but
is a good knight of his hands for all that. King Mark,
husband of Isolde, is portrayed as a treacherous villain.
Only incidentally, in a later section, is Mark’s murder of
Tristram noted. This Tristram section, full of adventures,
disguises, unexpected meetings, unexplained departures,
and arbitrary battles, has all the mystery and excitement
of romance. It is the part of Malory’s work least like the
world of plausible appearances of the novel.
A digression toward the end of the Tristram section
tells how Lancelot was tricked into begetting Sir Ga-
lahad upon Elaine, daughter of Sir Pelles. This leads
naturally to the sixth section, in which Sir Galahad, now
a pure virginal young knight, comes to King Arthur’s
court. Miraculous events initiate the Quest of the Holy
Grail. The Grail, according to Malory, is the dish from
which Christ ate with the apostles on Easter, brought
to England by Joseph of Arimathea and endowed with
properties both holy and magical. Hermits exhort the
knights in their quest, visions and allegories abound,
though Malory greatly abbreviates the religious didacti-
cism of his French source. Only Galahad, Percival, and
Bors succeed in seeing the Grail; Galahad and Percival
both die, passing beyond human ken, and Bors is the
only successful Grail knight to return to Camelot. Lance-
lot is granted only a partial vision of the Grail. He is
fl awed by his love of Guinevere, but Malory changes the
monastic spirit of the original, so that Lancelot remains
in a sense the hero. Despite all the changes many beauti-
ful and magical scenes remain, as in the appearance of
the ship with Percival’s sister.
The last two sections of Le Morte Darthur, the
seventh and eighth, may be considered as one, for they
tell of the supreme glory of the Round Table and its
tragic end in a series of closely connected episodes.
Malory’s art is here at its greatest. He blends French
and English sources, but what he makes, fl eshed out
with his own invention, is entirely his own and one of
the great achievements of English literature. The core
of the story is the continuing love between Lancelot and
Guinevere, and the determination of some malcontents
to trap them, so that King Arthur has to condemn
them. Lancelot has to rescue the queen three times,
and on one occasion he accidentally kills Sir Gareth,
his beloved friend, whom he had himself knighted. This
joins Gareth’s brother Gawain to Lancelot’s enemies,
and eventually Arthur is forced by Gawain to declare
war on Lancelot.
During Arthur’s absence at the war Mordred claims
the throne and attempts to marry Guinevere. Ultimately,
after Gawain has repented of his vengeful feud against
Lancelot and died from wounds, Mordred confronts
Arthur in battle. The bastard son and noble father kill
each other in the desolation of the corpse-strewn battle-
fi eld. Arthur dies slowly by a “water-side.” Excalibur
is thrown into a lake and a hand mysteriously grasps it.
Queens come in a boat to take Arthur to Avalon. It is
an unforgettably eerie scene, rich in the ancient potent
symbolism of the separation, dissolution, and healing
power of death. Guinevere enters a nunnery; after a fi nal
interview with her Lancelot withdraws to a hermitage,
and they die without meeting again.
No mere summary can convey the power, beauty, and
pathos of these two sections. Much of the action is con-
veyed through brilliant terse dialogue, occasionally with
a touch of grim or sarcastic humor. There is a wealth
of incident in such episodes as Lancelot’s rescues of
Guinevere, or in the beautiful account of the Fair Maid
of Ascolat (later spelled Astolat), who dies for love of
Lancelot, or the moving story of Lancelot’s healing of
Sir Urry. The best knight in the world weeps in humility
as he performs the miraculous cure, yet he is the one who
causes the destruction of Arthur’s Round Table.
Malory’s imaginative world is narrow. It is com-
posed only of Arthur, of good or bad knights, and a few
desirable or treacherous ladies who, with two or three
exceptions, are hardly more than ciphers. No ordinary
concerns of life appear. Simple themes are illustrated
by simple actions, performed by characters with few
traits and virtually no inner life. Yet Malory’s earnest
concentration on fundamental issues of loyalty, love,
and combat, guided by a complex system of honor, is
intensely alive. The encounters, friendly or hostile, the
wanderings, the seemingly arbitrary events combined
with the sense of destiny, the comradeship and the
betrayals, create a profound symbol of life that we can
easily relate to. Malory’s prose creates a sense of the
man as in his essence he would be: no mere “narrator”
but writing directly to us in the colloquial yet dignifi ed
manner of a brave and courteous country gentleman,
on a subject that deeply matters to him, the history of
Arthur, of England, of all of us.MALORY, THOMAS