Mapping Malory Regional Identities and National Geographies in Le Morte Darthur

by Armstrong, Dorsey; Hodges, Kenneth

• ISBN13: 9781137034854
• ISBN10: 1137034858
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-07-10
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

This book redraws the map of Arthurian studies. Challenging the common understanding of Malory's Morte Darthur as a celebration of an expansionist, united England, this book's closer attention to geography and regional identities brings out political subtexts about the heterogeneous nature of Britain. Transforming the understanding of Arthur and his major knights by placing them in their regional home territories, this approach shows a fractured and far-flung Britain. The careers of the famous knights have a geopolitical logic, defined not just by the big kingdoms of Scotland, Wales, France, and England, but also by smaller territories such as Orkney, Cornwall, and the Isles. Under constant pressure, knights' regional identities are formed by negotiation with other territories and with imagined histories that stretch as far as Rome and Sarras. The complex relations among places result in a far more contested and variegated form of nationalism than expected in the transition from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern period.

Author Biography

Dorsey Armstrong is Associate Professor of English at Purdue University, USA. She is the author of Gender and the Chivalric Community in Malory's Morte d'Arthur, the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Arthuriana, and has published numerous articles on Malory and the Arthurian tradition.
 
Kenneth Hodges is Associate Professor of English at the University of Oklahoma, USA. He is the author of Forging Chivalric Communities in Malory's Morte d'Arthur and has published articles on Malory, Spenser, and other medieval and early modern authors.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Places of Romance
1. Mapping Malory's Morte: The (Physical) Place and (Narrative) Space of Cornwall; Dorsey Armstrong
2. Of Wales and Women: Guenevere's Sister and the Isles; Kenneth Hodges
3. Sir Gawain, Scotland, Orkney; Kenneth Hodges
4. Trudging toward Rome, Drifting toward Sarras; Dorsey Armstrong
5. Why Malory's Launcelot Is Not French:Region, Nation, and Political Identity; Kenneth Hodges
Conclusion: Malory's Questing Beast and the Geography of the Arthurian World; Dorsey Armstrong