In Le Morte d'Arthur, by Thomas Malory (more accurately the material of Le Morte d'Arthur provided for me) begins with Arthur (being born of the king of Britain Uther Pendragon) is sent away to be brought up by Sir Ector. After Uther Pendragon died, in order to determine who the rightful heir to the throne, Merlin had a sword placed in a stone, and only the rightful king would be able to pull it out. Arthur proceeded to do just that. With his new power Arthur created an order of knights; the knights of the round table. Out of the many knights of the round table Sir Lancelot was the greatest. Lancelot went on many adventures, defeating many less pure hearted knights then he, all under the flag of his beloved (yet married to Arthur) Gwynevere. Lancelot and Arthur are forced into conflict over Gwynevere by Modred and Aggravayne. Lancelot returns home to France, and Gawain persuades Arthur to wage war on him, while Arthur does so, Modred stays and takes over the throne through treachery. Arthur hearing of this returned to Britain and after a series of battles Arthur Killed Modred, but not before Modred managed to land a blow to his skull, which he eventually died of.
Le Morte d'Arthur (what I have read of it), in my opinion is an amazing piece of literature, and I commend Thomas Malory for being able to pull all the pieces of the myth of King Arthur together so nicely (while in prison no less). Moving past that, Le Morte d'Arthur does not have very much depth into it's characters, which can be blamed on the time period in which it was written, there were times where I would have like to know someones reasoning for doing something, or in the case of Lancelot, to have done something that wasn't entirely predictable. Although this lack of depth adds quite a bit of focus on the plot, and makes it move forward at a much faster rate then most modern literature, which is heavily focused on character development, and is actually quite refreshing. With all that in mind, Le Morte d'Arthur is quite good.
Le Morte d'Arthur (what I have read of it), in my opinion is an amazing piece of literature, and I commend Thomas Malory for being able to pull all the pieces of the myth of King Arthur together so nicely (while in prison no less). Moving past that, Le Morte d'Arthur does not have very much depth into it's characters, which can be blamed on the time period in which it was written, there were times where I would have like to know someones reasoning for doing something, or in the case of Lancelot, to have done something that wasn't entirely predictable. Although this lack of depth adds quite a bit of focus on the plot, and makes it move forward at a much faster rate then most modern literature, which is heavily focused on character development, and is actually quite refreshing. With all that in mind, Le Morte d'Arthur is quite good.
(Also, I am quite sorry for my inability to summarize more briefly)
1 comment:
Good first blog. I do have a couple of questions - why do you think there is so little depth to the piece? You talk about Lancelot doing something that isn't entirely predictable - to what are you referring? Is there a theme that can be found in these three brief pieces? If so, what is it?
Good job getting the first assignment out of the way!!!
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