Towards the end of the Middle Ages, Sir Thomas Malory synthesized the diverse elements of British chronicle history, Celtic myth, French courtoisie, and Catholic theology which over a period of six hundred years or more had gathered about the legendary figure of King Arthur. Furthermore, Malory presented in definitive form the kind of idealized milieu that later writers in English came to regard as romantic. Malory's Morte Darthur presents dramatically the activities of a mythic aristocratic society living in a golden age. It preserves the "history" of a British king who defeats the Emperor of Rome and establishes an empire stretching from Ireland and Scandinavia to the Eastern Mediterranean. It portrays the adventures of heroic knights whose prowess is inspired by idealized ladies and whose achievements are helped or hindered by such supernatural agents as fays, magicians, giants, dwarfs, angels and devils. The actions of the knights conform to a ritualistic pattern of quest and combat determined by stereotyped chivalric conventions and performed in a symbol-studded environment. Colours, numbers, costumes, metals, arms, armour, and horses have symbolic significances which may be hierarchic, emotive or moral. Castles and perilous forests represent the antithetical values of security and danger, peace and combat, civilization and primitivism, love and hate. In this antipodal environment occur encounters which often adumbrate a struggle between forces of good and forces of evil. In the religious milieu of the Grail quest, elements of the secular milieu are adopted for the purpose of expressing truths of Catholic faith and morality. The Grail Knight's search for Corbenic is an allegory of the soul's search for God. Arms and armour, dress and colours, animals and plants have symbolic significances drawn from Biblical exegesis and Christian art. The unifying element in the historical, romantic and religious milieux is the quest motif; it is the means by which the ideals of the Malorian world are revealed. The historical quest for the crown of Rome shows Malory's view of sovereignty and the ideal of the good king. The romantic quest for fame and fair ladies shows his view of chivalry and the ideal of the good knight. The spiritual quest for the Holy Grail shows his view of religion and the ideal of the good Christian. It is a measure of Malory's art that the wishfulfilling dream world of romance projects an illusion of reality. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Descended from Celtic goddesses and the fairies of folklore, the literary character of Morgan le Fay has been most commonly perceived as a witch and a one-dimensional villainess who plagues King Arthur and his court, rather than recognized as the legendary King’s enchanted healer and otherworldly guardian. Too often the complexity of Morgan le Fay and her supernatural abilities are lost, her character neglected as peripheral. As a literary figure of imaginative design this thesis explores Morgan le Fay as a unique “window” into the medieval mindset, whereby one can recover both medieval understandings of magic and female magicians. By analyzing her role in key sources from the twelfth to fifteenth century, this thesis uses Morgan le Fay to recover nuanced perceptions of the supernatural in medieval England that embraced the ambiguity of a pagan past and remained insulated from continental constructions of demonic witchcraft. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the history in English literature of the relationship between King Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot, in order to show how various authors have enriched the legend by developing the psychological potential of the chief characters, and by projecting the standards of their respective ages into their versions of the story. Special emphasis has been placed on the work of Sir Thomas Malory, Alfred Tennyson, E.A. Robinson, and T.H. White. The Arthurian legend is particularly appropriate for such a comparative study. It has received the attention of English writers for eight centuries, and, for the past hundred years, of writers in America as well. In the fifteenth century Malory used the legend to argue for a strong monarchy, and to remind his aristocratic countrymen of the neglected ideals of chivalry; in the nineteenth century Tennyson hoped that the re-telling of the story for its elements of moral and spiritual allegory would inspire the Victorians to rise above the materialism and sensuality which to him were signs of the times; early in the twentieth century Edwin Arlington Robinson suggested a comparison between the disintegration of Camelot and the disruption of European society after World War I, and he questioned the traditionally accepted greatness of Arthur and his kingdom; in the last decade Terence Hanbury White has seen that the problem facing King Arthur also confronts the strife-torn twentieth century how can the energies of men be harnessed for constructive rather than destructive action? The adultery between Guinevere and Lancelot has been made the focal point of this study because it involves the three best-known characters of the legend, and because it has attracted the interest of writers more than has any other element of the Arthuriad, particularly in the past one hundred years. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1948 N6 / Master of Science

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