Malory Comparison: Thomas Malory\'s \"L\'morte

Malory

Comparison: Thomas Malory's "L'Morte d'Arthur" versus Alfred Lord Tennyson's "Idylls of the King" Two Epic Sagas of Camelot

In his "Death of Arthur," Thomas Malory relates a prose saga of a mythic, law-abiding yet still military-based creation of a fantasy kingdom called Camelot. Malory's Camelot is still negotiating tenuously evolving rule of law and the loyalty of its Christian knights. In contrast, the "Idylls of the King" by the Victorian poet Alfred Lord Tennyson uses the religious, mythic and moral elements of Camelot to create a fable of proper English masculine behavior rather than a more general tale of how a great king should rule.

Both author's stories revolve around the central figure of King Arthur. But only in the later rendering of the legends of Camelot does the character as well as the presence of king Arthur become paramount. Malory's tales use Arthur more as a figurehead or a showpiece -- Arthur begins the tales, but Arthur figures less centrally as a moral authority in the action and evolution of the narrative than he does in the "Idylls." The evolving character of the knights and rather than the internal struggles of Arthur predominate in Malory. Malory's tales are concerned with the deeds of knights such as Sir Gawain, Sir Lancelot, and other of Arthur's sworn servants.

This shift in the significance of Arthur between Malory and Tennyson may be due to the fact that Malory adapted his tales from French legends that focused on the nature of courtly love in Camelot, and the relationships of the knights rather than Arthur. The question of how the knights may prove themselves as Christian men of might and lordly loyalty yet negotiate courtly love ethics is important to Malory, rather than the Camelot kingdom's ethics and laws as in Tennyson.