Before Malory: Reading Arthur in Later Medieval England
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. 1st Edition. Hardcover. 8vo. Fine / Fine. Item #006399
Full black cloth, red lettering to spine. ix, 368 pp. Fine condition. Although most modern scholars doubt the historicity of King Arthur, parts of the legend were accepted as fact throughout the Middle Ages. Medieval accounts of historical King Arthur, however, present a very different king from the romances that are widely studied today. Richard Moll examines a wide variety of historical texts including Thomas Gray's Scalacronica and John Hardyng's Chronicle to explore the relationship between the Arthurian chronicles and the romances. He demonstrates how competing and conflicting traditions interacted with one another and how writers and readers of Arthurian texts negotiated a complex textual tradition. The first monograph to look at the impact of these historical texts on Arthurian literature, Before Malory is also the first to show how canonical vernacular romances interacted with chronicle texts that have since dropped out of the canon.
Price (CAD): $75.00