Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- for Judge Thomas H. Crofts, Sr aka Pop
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The Text at Hand
- 2 Caxton's Preface: Historia and Argumentum
- 3 Malory's Moral Scribes: ‘Balyn’ in the Winchester Manuscript
- 4 Usurpation, Right and Redress in Malory's Roman War
- 5 No Hint of the Future
- Epilogue: Two Gestures of Closure
- Bibliography
- Index
- Arthurian Studies
Epilogue: Two Gestures of Closure
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- for Judge Thomas H. Crofts, Sr aka Pop
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The Text at Hand
- 2 Caxton's Preface: Historia and Argumentum
- 3 Malory's Moral Scribes: ‘Balyn’ in the Winchester Manuscript
- 4 Usurpation, Right and Redress in Malory's Roman War
- 5 No Hint of the Future
- Epilogue: Two Gestures of Closure
- Bibliography
- Index
- Arthurian Studies
Summary
… an adventure is, by both etymology and convention, an incident that cannot be known in advance. Logically then, if adventures disappear, the outcome of present events may become predictable.
(Norris Lacy, ‘The Morte Artu and Cyclic Closure’)And what a nightmare that would be! Thus the possibility of adventures is the element most carefully tended by authors of romance. The technique of interlace provided that no one adventure in the Vulgate Cycle would end without another remaining in the balance. Malory's de-interlaced version keeps the possibility alive by means of architectural innovation and strategically oblique prophecy. In either method, theoretically, the necessary conditions for adventure can be maintained world without end. Even so, whether in Malory or in the Vulgate, there is a structural point at which Arthurian adventure must disappear, and that point is the conclusion of the Lancelot-and-Guinevere drama. That conclusion may be considered either the demise of the characters themselves, or the deadly malaise which permeates the Mort Artu generally; one could also speculate from this point as to the end of the genre itself. In any case it is the era beyond which Arthurian narrative may not progress. Accordingly, the author of the French Mort provides for the non-continuation of the story so that it might not be amended:
Si se test ore atant mestre Gautiers Map de l'Estoire de Lancelot, car bien a tout mené a fin selonc les choses qui en avindrent, et fenist ci son livre si outreement que aprés ce n'en porroit nus riens conter qui n'en mentist de toutes choses.
Up to this point, then, Master Walter Map authorizes the Story of Lancelot, because he has guided everything to a proper conclusion according to the things that happened; and he finishes his book here so completely that after this no one can tell any more of the story without falsifying the whole thing.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Malory's Contemporary AudienceThe Social Reading of Romance in Late Medieval England, pp. 152 - 158Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2006