Le Morte d'Author
I. An Increasingly Crowded Camelot
II. What is Prince Valiant Doing There?
III. Le Morte d'Auctor
Neale Barnholden
16 November 2010
or: The Sinister Hats of Morgan le Fay
Unknown, c. 1400
Mike Sekowsky, August 1963
Jerry Ordway, May 1991
John Byrne, October 1980
Marie Severin, April 1981
Frank Springer, Nov-Jan 1964
Script: Rick Veitch, Art: Tom Yeates
June 1989
Jack Kirby, October 1972
Joe Maneely, July 1955
Jerry Ordway, May 1991
Script: Rick Veitch, Art: Tom Yeates
June 1989
Brian Bolland, April 1985
John Romita Jr., September 1981
Script: Joe Samachson, Art: Frank Frazetta
June, 1950
Hal Foster, c. 1939
Tom Yeates, June 1989
Mort Meskin, Winter 1941/1942
Irv Novick, Jan-December 1956/1957
Jack Kirby, October 1972
"The writings of an auctor contained, or possessed, auctoritas in the abstract sense of the term, with its strong connotations of veracity and sagacity."
- A.J. Minnis, 1984
The Sources of the Morte Darthur
Author as....
FRENCH: Prose Merlin (I), Vulgate Suite du Merlin (II, VII), Post-Vulgate Suite du Merlin (I, VI),
Prose Lancelot (II, III, IV, V), Prose Tristan (I, IV, V, VI), Vulgate Queste del Saint Graal (VI),
Vulgate La morte Artu (VII, VIII), Chretien's Eric et Enide (III, IV, V), Le Chevaliet au lion (I, III,
VII) and perhaps his Chevalier de la charrette (VII), Perlesvaus (I, II), L'Atre perilleux.
reductive ............................................... productive
ENGLISH: Alliterative Morte Arthure (I, II, VIII), Stanzaic Morte Arthur (I, VII, VIII), Hardyng's
Chronicle (I, II, VI and VIII), Chaucer's Canterbury Tales ("Wife of Bath" and "Franklin's Tale"
(I), "Knight's Tale" (VII)), Of Arthour and Merlin (I), Ywain and Gawain (I), The Carl of Carlisle
(I), Torrent of Portyngale (I), Gawain and the Carl of Carlisle or Anturs of Arthur (V), Ipomadon
(IV), Wedding of Sir Gawain (V, VIII), Lydgate's Pageant of Knowledge (VII), Sir Triamour
(VII), a variation of "Sir Landeval" (VII).
"... Someone else writes both his own materials and those of others, but his own as the principal materials, and the materials of others annexed for the purpose of confirming his own, and such must be called the auctor."
"The mind's hand shapes the entire house before the body's hand builds it. Its mode of being is archetypal before it is actual."
stabilizing ............................................... destabilizing
- Saint Bonaventure, 1250-2
LOST: The major source of "The Tale of Sir Gareth" (I, II, IV, V, VII, VIII), Romance of Playne de Fors and Playne de Amors (V, VII), Tale of Sir Marrok, the werewolf (VII).
- Geoffrey of Vinsauf, c.1208-1213
comprehensive ............................................... fragmentary
Salisbury Cathedral, 1220-1258
ORAL: Charge to the Knights of the Bath (I), the Grail containing the Blood of Christ (I, V), Arthur's Epitaph (VIII), Legend of Arthur's Survival (VIII).
- Ralph Norris, 2008
"At first reading Malory's book seems to share the amorphous and incoherent character of most mediæval prose-romances... But first impressions are misleading, and the longer one studies Malory the clearer grows the conviction that his book is a coherent work of art."
- Vida Scudder, 1921
"In producing what is essentially a brief English Arthurian prose cycle, Malory retold the old story in a way that incorporated elements from many strands of Arthurian legend and therefore brought a measure of hitherto unrealized harmony to this diverse body."
- Ralph Norris, 2008