Vacation

[elaby]

MAN, I love vacation. I did NO HOMEWORK this weekend. Which means that I have to buckle down today and tomorrow, but still... a whole weekend with caitirin with no homework hanging over my head. It was glorious. We even got, like, dishes and laundry done o.o

[edit for brief interlude in which elaby ascertains that her answering machine isn't coming on, doctors call asking for bloodwork, various scheduling has to be done around vacations/classes, caitirin is summarily called and telephones and answering machines are unplugged, now to resume working correctly]

That was weird O.o

Anyway, I should get back to reading Malory. I took a break to try to find some drawings I'd been looking for, one for Caitirin and one from this book hak42 lent me last year in which King Arthur awoke in the present day and Merlin was 11 years old. I also found my notebooks from my first year of college, which I'd been looking for - it turns out I pulled all the pages out and stuck them into a binder, and had forgotten I did that. Heh.

Back to Malory ^^;;

Comments

[elaby.livejournal.com]

I read T. H. White's Once and Future King last summer, or sometime around then, and drawing comparisons between the two is really all that's allowing me to keep track of what's going on. I'm reading this for my Medieval Epic and Romance class, and I must say that I like the epics a great deal better. Your explanations are really helpful, though; I don't think I would have any idea what to do with this otherwise, since our readings are for next week and we haven't discussed any of this in class yet.

[sir-dave.livejournal.com]

I entirely relate to your comments about referring back to T H White, who appears to have had much the same view of Malory as you and I. That being so, is rather remarkable, because it ought to be the other way round. But a good modern Arthur gives us more reason to fight to understand Malory, than Malory has given anyone for a century. He has to be given credit; he's been in print for over 500 years, and I'd love the same results, even if I'd hate to reproduce his so-called style.

What Malory does is make us wish we knew the people he writes of - not by design, but mostly by telling us practically nothing about their inner motivations and struggles. Thus he creates a whole industry of fan-fiction, but since he is out of copyright, we can get to call it our own idea ;)

I am glad this is being helpful; now that it is clear this is in an academic setting, the thought of having to read Malory to a timetable fills me with dread. I am no longer sure when it was that I started reading him, but I make myself do some on almost every Sunday, with occasional reads in the week as and when I can stand the effort.

I think of Malory as a middle aged, out of touch, boorish, knightly villain, with a desire to see himself as part of an ongoing tradition of knighthood going back a thousand years. In this he attempts to put some virtue into chivalry, when as it was constituted in his age, it probably had very little of what we would call virtue at all; it had a code, and a very strange one. Above all it probably made knights feel better about themselves, and others better about fantasizing about the life of a knight.

miss_next has a colleague who we think would be interested in becoming Malory's 'leman' given half a chance. She may recount the story herself.

I have written an epic poem in the tradition of 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight', but in much more accessible English, which was inspired by my love for fairy_empyreal, and is thus about Arthurian Fairies (or Fay), and naturally stars one called Empyreal :) The Tolkien translation of 'Gawain' is a dire calumny that I may have to force myself to read after Malory. The film dates to the seventies I think, and I enjoyed it; I cannot find a copy anywhere, but as I intend following up with my own version of that story, that is a real regret. There comes a point where one gets a clear enough idea in one's head that further research represses one's own ideas rather than clarifies them; I'd far rather watch the film than read the poem, whose style (as translated by Tolkien and E V Gordon) is no better than that of Malory in many regards.

[elaby.livejournal.com]

It's very helpful to think of Malory in that way, the way you've described - as the source for so many other enjoyable versions and extensions of the story. I'm going to be reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for the same class later in the year, but the translation we've got is by Brian Stone.

[sir-dave.livejournal.com]

The best argument for reading Malory and treating him as a source, is probably the difficulty of doing so with anyone from an earlier time - unless one understands medieval French, or can put up with Geoffrey of Monmouth; I might yet steel myself to do the latter.

Do let me know what you think of the Stone translation; that would be interesting to me. I have found out some stuff by Googling 'Gawain Green Knight Brian Stone', but they are not kind enough to include text. Mind you the Amazon link might have a sample --- :: goes to look ::

My own 'Gawain' would begin with Pellinore as a Prince, and involve Orkney legend. The more I read the details of other approaches to the Green Knight / Green Man, the more it drives me to want to get my own written. I am seething with possibilities.

[sir-dave.livejournal.com]

Since your readings are for next week, there is still time to advise you of the best of Malory. I have now completed book 18, and I am in sight of the finish. Either by this time Malory had, through practice, become a better writer, or he had some change in his life, such as love, which transformed his abilities.

Book 18 contains everything that Malory does well, and has less of his failings than any other part to date. At the end (chapter 25), he writes as well as anyone on love. If you need by next week to find the heart of Malory, skip the rest and read book 18.

Suddenly I see the might-have-been of Malory; and no matter what you do in literature, if you can finish well, your readers remember you with greater affection than if you start well and then disappoint.

[elaby.livejournal.com]

Luckily for me, the part that's due next week is just the first 120 pages or so of the version I've got, so I was able to read all of it. We've got a bunch more assigned; hopefully, chapter 18 will be among them! Thanks for giving me something to look forward to ^_^

Nowadays everybody wanna talk like Sir Thomas Malory

[sir-dave.livejournal.com]

(From my journal)

After a time so long that I cannot remember how long it is, I have finally completed the 1000 plus pages of Malory's "Morte d'Arthur", which has in the most part been a very great struggle. But towards the end, Malory shows what might have been, by writing something that is akin to being recognisable as a book, and almost recognisable as prose. After 1000 pages, I suspect he had to have some chance of getting it right ---.

The purpose, for me, was to research the subject of Arthur deeply enough that I could comprehend how to expand 'Empyreal' into a complete Arthurian cycle. I believe I now know what I need to know; and I hope that the first to tell will be a publisher. My conception of things Arthurian is now so revolutionary that I won't be sharing the shock with anyone except my formidable editor and critic :)


Just a buncha gibberish
Sir Thomas Malory, Morte d'Arthur, from book 18 chapter 25: 'How love is likened to summer'.

For like as winter rasure doth always erase and deface green summer, so fareth it by unstable love in man and woman. For in many persons there is no stability; for we may see all day, for a little blast of winter’s rasure, anon we shall deface and lay apart true love for little or nought, that cost much thing; this is no wisdom nor stability, but it is feebleness of nature and great disworship, whomsoever useth this.

Therefore, like as May month flowereth and flourisheth in many gardens, so in likewise let every man of worship flourish his heart in this world, first unto God, and next unto the joy of them that he promised his faith unto; for there was never worshipful man nor worshipful woman, but they loved one better than another; and worship in arms may never be foiled, but first reserve the honour to God, and secondly the quarrel must come of thy lady: and such love I call virtuous love.

But nowadays men cannot love seven night but they must have all their desires: that love may not endure by reason; for where they be soon accorded and hasty, heat soon it cooleth. Right so fareth love nowadays, soon hot soon cold: this is no stability. But the old love was not so; men and women could love together seven years, and no licours lusts were between them, and then was love, truth, and faithfulness: and lo, in likewise was used love in King Arthur’s days.

Wherefore I liken love nowadays unto summer and winter; for like as the one is hot and the other cold, so fareth love nowadays; therefore all ye that be lovers call unto your remembrance the month of May, like as did Queen Guenever, for whom I make here a little mention, that while she lived she was a true lover, and therefore she had a good end.



I feel as though Malory takes 1000 pages to gain the confidence to become a writer himself, and not merely a collator or translator. Either that, or late in life, he suddenly knew real love for the first time. Who knows? Due to Caxton, that may be because of the first generation of fangirls!! :)