Malory: The Knight Who Became King Arthur's Chronicler

This is a book that general audiences can have hours of fun reading and historians, literary historians, Arthurians, and other scholars of all shades can have hours of fun arguing about (and I draw from personal experience). Most impressive is Hardyment's full-scale, detailed look at the context of the world in which Malory lived and wrote, exploring its political pressures, its social conventions, its cultural attitudes, and the ways it sought to authenticate itself. She's also adept at managing the physical evidence, reproducing for us (in word pictures and fine visual additions) the materiality of the world: its houses, its armor, its food, its diseases. She admits where her conclusions are romantic speculations (imagining Malory's amorous intrigues and/or military commitments) but places them within the context of existing evidence. The extensive endnotes and bibliography prove she's done her research and documented her sources. Literary critics might be hesitant to read as much of Malory's own personal attitudes from what's written in the 'Morte Darthur' as Hardyment does--even in the fifteenth century, authors were capable of irony, satire, creating fiction, and constructing narrative personae--and after a few hundred pages, the blur of names and titles makes one long for a glossary of proper names at the end, just to keep the dynasties and loyalties organized in one's mind. But none of this proves an impediment to the fine, clear prose, and in the end, Hardyment's imaginative reconstruction of a man of deep loyalties, strong moral fiber, romantic leanings, and nostalgia for a world where chivalry actually means something is persuasive and appealing and, on its own, offers an explanation for why the 'Morte Darthur' has such a lasting literary life.