This study innovatively explores how Malory's Morte D'Arthur responds to available literary vernacular Arthurian traditions which the French defined as theoretical in impulse, the English as performative and experimental. Negotiating these influences, Malory transforms constructions of masculine heroism, especially in the presentation of Launcelot, and exposes the tensions and disillusions of the Arthurian project. The Morte poignantly conveys a desire for integrity in narrative and subject-matter, but at the same time tests literary conceptualizations of history, nationalism, gender and selfhood, and considers the failures of social and legal institutionalizations of violence, in a critique of literary form and of social order.

Structures and Traditions Desire and Violence: Merlin's Narratives Narrative Form and Heroic Expectation: The Tale of Arthur and Lucius, A Noble Tale of Sir Lancelot du Lake, The Tale of Sir Gareth of Orkney Setting Limits: Textual and Social Parameters of The Book of Sir Tristram Spiritual Community: Fatherhood and Gender in The Book of the Sankgreal The Commemorative and the Exemplary in the Morte D'Arthur

CATHERINE BATT is a Lecturer in the School of English, University of Leeds. She has articles on Clemence of Barking, the Gawain-Poet, Malory, Caxton, and V.S. Naipaul, and is editor of Essays on Thomas Hoccleve.