Now Out in Paperback: A New Companion to Malory

A New Companion to Malory

Edited by Megan G Leitch and Cory James Rushton

Full details and order information are available from the publisher at this link. 


TITLE DETAILS

344 Pages

23.4 x 15.6 cm

11 b/w illus.

Series: Arthurian Studies
Series Vol. Number: 87

Imprint: D.S.Brewer




Paperback

9781843846758

November 2022

£25.99 / $37.95




A comprehensive survey of Malory's Morte Darthur, one of the most important texts of the Middle Ages.

Malory's Morte Darthur is now a canonical and widely-taught text. Recent decades have seen a transformation and expansion of critical approaches in scholarship, as well as significant advances in understanding its milieux:textual, literary, cultural and historical. This volume adds to and updates the influential Companion of 1996, offering scholars, teachers and students alike a full guide to the text and the author. The essays it contains provide a synthetic overview of, and fresh perspectives on, the key questions about and contexts connected with the Morte.




CONTENTS

Introduction
Malory in Historical Context - Catherine Nall
Malory and His Sources - Ralph Norris
Writing the Morte Darthur: Author, Manuscript, and Modern Editions - Kevin S Whetter and Thomas Howard Crofts
Malory in Literary Context - Megan G. Leitch
Malory in Print - Sian Echard
Malory and Form - Cory Rushton
Malory and Character - Dorsey Armstrong
Malory and Gender - Amy S. Kaufman
Malory and Emotion - Andrew Lynch
Secular Malory - Lisa Robeson
Spiritual Malory - Raluca Radulescu
Malory and the Wider World - Meg Roland
Malory in Wartime Britain - Robert Gossedge
Malory in Japan - Masako Takagi
Malory in America - Daniel Glynn Helbert


AUTHORS

MEGAN G. LEITCH is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Cardiff University; CORY JAMES RUSHTON is Associate Professor in the Department of English at St Francis Xavier University, Canada.

Contributors: Dorsey Armstrong, Thomas Crofts, Siân Echard, Rob Gossedge, Daniel Helbert, Amy Kaufman, Megan Leitch, Andrew Lynch, Catherine Nall, Ralph Norris, Raluca Radulescu, Lisa Robeson, Meg Roland, Cory Rushton, Masako Takagi, Kevin Whetter.

Arthuriana Spring 2021 Contents

The latest issue:

Arthuriana, Vol. 31, No. 1

Spring 2021

Source: http://www.arthuriana.org/access/31-1Contents.html.

(The journal can be purchased from the press and viewed at Project MUSE. It is also archived on JSTOR behind a moving wall.)

Table of Contents

‘Truth as They Heard’: Fama in Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur
Louis J. Boyle	3
The Second Coming of King Arthur: Conspirituality, Embodied Medievalism, and the Legacy of John F. Kennedy
Ellie Crookes	32
The Romance Forests of Medieval Iceland
Maj-Britt Frenze	56
Love out of Measure: Comparing Malory’s Palomides and Lancelot
Dana Omirova	78
Winner of the ‘Fair Unknown’ Award
They ‘Laȝed . . . Þoȝ Þey Lost’: Laughter in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Jennifer Fast	92
REVIEWS
Simon Armitage, Pearl: A New Verse Translation
Ryan Buchanan Allen	116
María Odette Canivell Arzú, Literary Narratives and the Cultural Imagination: King Arthur and Don Quixote as National Heroes
Juan Miguel Zarandona	117
Glenn D. Burger and Rory G. Critten, eds., Household Knowledges in Late-Medieval England and France
Wesley Chihyung Yu	119
Benjamin A. Saltzman, Bonds of Secrecy: Law, Spirituality, and the Literature of Concealment in Early Medieval England
Craig R. Davis	121
Charles Russell Stone, The roman de toute chevalerie: Reading Alexander Romance in Late Medieval England
Su Fang Ng	122

Guest Post - Mediavilla on Legendborn

Deonn, Tracy. Legendborn. Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2020. The Legendborn Cycle 1. 501 pages. Hardcover: $18.99, ISBN 9781534441606.

 

Bree Matthews, a Black sixteen-year-old high-schooler, is about to start a pre-college residential program at UNC-Chapel Hill when she becomes embroiled in the machinations of a secret society, called “Legendborn,” made-up of students who are all blood descendants of King Arthur and his most trusted Knights of the Round Table. The Legendborn are on the verge of fighting an epic good-vs.-evil battle, known as Camlann, coming soon to campus. But not all is as it seems. The more Bree learns about the Legendborn, the more she suspects a connection to her mother’s recent death and so, with the help of Nick Davis, Arthur’s heir apparent, begins to investigate the group’s darker magical side. Along the way, she discovers her own magical powers, called “rootcraft,” which she traces back to her enslaved ancestors.

 

To become more familiar with the Legendborn ethos, Bree decides to train as a squire and, in so doing, becomes romantically involved with Nick. She also suddenly finds herself strangely attracted to Selwyn, Nick’s “Merlin” and protector, who recognizes in her a kindred spirit. Could Bree be destined to play an important role in the upcoming battle of Camlann even though she is not Legendborn?

 

Though overly complicated, the majority of the story is conveyed through dialog and so moves rather quickly. Nevertheless, the nearly 500-page book is too long by half, especially whenever Bree is tutored on the history of the Legendborn. Too much extraneous detail that, in the long run, has little to do with the plot. Furthermore, unlike other recent young adult novels set in Arthurian times, Legendborn takes place in the present-day, which demands more than a passing suspension of disbelief. Do the residents of UNC truly not hear the climactic battle that occurs on campus at the end of the book? And how does Bree find time to study between falling in love with Nick and training to become a squire?

 

Still, the novel remains compelling thanks to the author’s mostly subtle nods to the racial disparity Bree encounters as she struggles to become part of Nick’s all-too-White world. Ultimately, this is a contemporary—and extremely timely—parable about White privilege, told through the first-person eyes of a Black teenager descended from slaves. As Bree is acutely aware, the only people of color she sees at the Legendborn’s lodge are the servants who work for the students. Though she does not try to intentionally shatter the group’s color barrier, this is exactly what she eventually does. Looking gorgeous in a borrowed gown, she approaches the upscale club where a posh Legendborn gala is being held. “All right, sis,” the appreciative Black doorman says. They then knowingly smile at each other as Bree triumphantly enters the event (p. 401).

 

An “Instant New York Times Bestseller,” Legendborn was named to several “best books” lists of 2020/21, including YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association), School Library Journal, Bookpage, New York Public Library, Indigo, BuzzFeed, and Amazon. Plus was named the winner of the American Library Association’s Coretta Scott King “John Steptoe Award for New Talent” in 2021. This book is recommended for all readers who enjoy contemporary adaptations of the Arthurian canon. A Legendborn sequel is in the works.

 

Cindy Mediavilla

 

Cindy Mediavilla is a retired public librarian who has collected, read and written about Arthurian fiction for more than 40 years. Her publications include Arthurian Fiction: An Annotated Bibliography (Scarecrow Press, 1999), "From 'Unthinking Stereotype' to Fearless Antagonist: The Evolution of Morgan le Fay on Television" (Arthuriana 25:1), and an article on Arthurian romance in Encyclopedia of Romance Fiction (2018). Cindy's MLS and PhD are from UCLA, where she also taught as a lecturer for 16 years.