Books: King Arthur's appeal

No tale has more completely captured the imagination of every generation since the medieval epoch like the story of King Arthur, his Knights of the Round Table, and their search for the Holy Grail. Few literary classics have entered the popular imagination as has Sir Thomas Malory's landmark book, Le Morte d' Arthur. The vividly drawn characters from its pages-such as Merlin, Guinevere, Lancelot, Mordred, and Arthur himself-have been so assimilated into the common currency of popular culture that they are familiar even to the youngest of school children. That is quite a feat for a fable written by an obscure knight-errant during the shameful years of his imprisonment more than half a millennium ago.

But even without its amazing popularity, Le Morte d'Arthur -written sometime before 1469, but then not published until some 15 years later-would still be classified as a remarkable feat of ingenuity, creativity, and intellect. Malory was hardly a man of letters. Instead he was a hapless medieval soldier and adventurer, who simply identified himself as "a servant of Jesu, both day and night," but who was thrown in prison for assault. Malory did not actually invent the great Arthurian legends. He merely collated them from extant documentary sources and then provided them with a cohesive and coherent narrative structure. But this was, in and of itself, a monumental achievement. Prior to his work, most of the ancient stories of Camelot's chivalry and heraldry had been passed from one troubadour to another through a disconnected series of romantic cycles. Malory took that vast assemblage of heterogeneous stories and forged it into what we would today call an epic work of heroic fiction.

Most commentators and critics agree that Malory's literary accomplishment was tremendously significant for three reasons: first, he unraveled the incoherent medieval lore and cast it in a popularly accessible plot-line; second, he practically invented a whole new fictional form in the process; and finally, he did it all in the just emerging prose vernacular of English rather than in literary Latin or classical French.

But the chief triumph of Malory was simply that he could spin a yarn like almost no one before or after. Malory probes the lives, exploits, and loves of Camelot, but even more he explores the escapades, travails, and adventures of the human heart in this poor fallen world. Rooted in a thoroughgoing Christian worldview, the stories expose evil, exalt good, and illumine truth.

Although there have been innumerable translations and rewrites of the Arthurian legends, as well as Broadway shows like Camelot and movies like First Knight, the modern reader should begin with Malory himself. Several fine unabridged translations are currently available. My own favorite is the Oxford University Press edition translated by the great Malory scholar Eugene Vinaver, but any of the current English translations based on the early Caxton folios is fine-Penguin, Signet, and Cambridge all have good paperback editions.

So gather round, all ye of good Christian cheer, and revel in the beauty and pageantry of yore. Arthur has returned.