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Morte D Arthur
Thomas Malory///

A short idea on Thomas Malory:::
In his own words, Malory was a ‘knight prisoner’
who implored his readers to pray for his
deliverance in life and his soul in death. Though
his identity is not certain, he is generally believed
to have been the Sir Thomas Malory who
inherited the estates of Newbold Revel in
Warwickshire and Winwick in Northamptonshire in
1434, aged around 24 years.
Malory led the unremarkable life of a country
gentleman, attending to his judicial and social
responsibilities as lord of the manor until 1450
when, for unknown reasons, he turned to a life of
crime.
What’s the story about?
It tells the famous legend of King Arthur and
Queen Guinevere, the knights of the Round Table
and their quest for the mystical Holy Grail. Malory
worked from a late-14th-century French poem,
adding some material from other sources, to
produce his English prose translation.
In 21 books, the story covers the founding of
Arthur’s kingdom and the institution of the Round
Table; the various adventures of individual
knights; the quest for the Holy Grail; the death of
Arthur and the fall of his kingdom.

Who was the real King Arthur?

A question many have asked, but none has
answered with credible proof. Early accounts of
the history of Britain are generously laced with
legend and imagination. Disagreement remains
about whether King Arthur, or a historical model
for him, ever lived.
Nennius, a Welsh monk writing in the late-eighth
century, compiled a history that describes a ‘dux
bellorum’, a war lord, called Arthur who led the
Britons in 12 battles against the Saxons some
three hundred years earlier. The ancient annals of
Wales date one of Arthur’s battles, the Battle of
Mount Badon, to the year 518. But the description
of that battle by Gildas, a chronicler writing less
than 30 years after the event, makes no mention
of Arthur.
It’s likely that the King Arthur handed down to
the middle ages was largely a literary figure,
echoing mythological traditions from Celtic
Britain. He emerges as a fully-formed hero in the
‘Historia Regum Britanniae’, written by Geoffrey of
Monmouth in the first half of the 12th century – a
work condemned by a contemporary for being
more fiction than fact.
Geoffrey’s history of the kings of Britain tells of
Arthur becoming king at the age of 15 and
conquering Scotland, Orkney, Ireland and Iceland.
He introduces other elements of the legend too:
Merlin, the powerful wizard; the beautiful
Guanhamara, who becomes Guinevere; and the
magical sword Caliburn, Excalibur.

What was the Holy Grail?

In medieval legend, the Holy Grail is the cup from
which Jesus Christ drank during the Last Supper
before his crucifixion. The same cup was used by
Joseph of Arimathea to catch drops of Christ’s
blood as he hung on the cross. Joseph brought
the holy relic to Britain where it was eventually
concealed in a mysterious castle surrounded by a
blighted landscape.
Though no historical evidence supports the
existence of such a cup, legend endowed the Holy
Grail with miraculous qualities of regeneration and
spiritual self-realisation for the knight who found
it. The mystic qualities of the vessel may be a
legacy of Celtic mythology, which features
magical cauldrons that provided endless amounts
of food and drink. Some belonged to gods, while
others were kept in enchanted lands beyond the
reach of ordinary mortals.

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An Apology for Poetry by Sir Philip Sydney
Philip Sidney in his "Apology for Poetry" reacts against the attacks made on poetry by the puritan, Stephen Gosson. To, Sidney, poetry is an art of imitation for specific purpose, it is imitated to teach and delight. According to him, poetry is simply a superior means of communication and its value depends on what is communicated.
So, even history when it is described in a lively and passionate expression becomes poetic. He prefers imaginative literature that teaches better than history and philosophy. Literature has the power to reproduce an ideal golden world not just the brazen world.
Stephen Gosson makes charges on poetry which Sidney answers.
The charges are:
1. Poetry is the waste of time.
2. Poetry is mother of lies.
3. It is nurse of abuse.
3. Plato had rightly banished the poets from his ideal world.
Against these charges, Sidney has answered them in the following ways-
Poetry is the source of knowledge and a civilizing force, for Sidney. Gosson attacks on poetry saying that it corrupts the people and it is the waste of time, but Sidney says that no learning is so good as that which teaches and moves to virtue and that nothing can both teach and amuse so much as poetry does. In essay societies, poetry was the main source of education. He remembers ancient Greek society that respected poets. The poets are always to be looked up. So, poetry is not wasted of time. (Defending Charge 1)
To the second charge, Sidney answers that poet does not lie because he never affirms that his fiction is true and can never lie. The poetic truths are ideal and universal. Therefore, poetry cannot be a mother of lies.
Sidney rejects that poetry is the source of abuses. To him, it is people who abuses poetry, not the vice- versa. Abuses are more nursed by philosophy and history than by poetry, by describing battles, bloodshed, violence etc. On the contrary, poetry helps to maintain morality and peace by avoiding such violence and blood sheds. Moreover it brings light to knowledge.
Sidney views that Plato in his Republic wanted to banish the abuse of poetry not the poets. He himself was not free from poeticality, which we can find in his dialogues. Plato never says that all poets should be banished. He called for banishing only those poets who are inferior and unable to instruct the children.
This is the area where Sidney starts to praise poetry with various phase:
For Sidney, art is the imitation of nature but it is not slavish imitation as Plato views. Rather it is creative imitation. Nature is dull, incomplete and ugly. It is artists who turn dull nature in to golden color. He employs his creative faculty, imagination and style of presentation to decorate the raw materials of nature. For Sidney, art is a speaking picture having spatiotemporal dimension. For Aristotle human action is more important but for Sidney nature is important.(Example: I wandered lonely as a cloud, The Road not taken) You have to extend the idea of these poems to prove the given statement by Sidney.
Artists are to create arts considering the level of readers. The only purpose of art is to teach and delight like the whole tendency of Renaissance. Sidney favors poetic justice that is possible in poet's world where good are rewarded and wicked people are punished.
Plato's philosophy on ' virtue' is worthless at the battlefield but poet teaches men how to behave under all circumstances. Moral philosophy teaches virtues through abstract examples and history teaches virtues through concrete examples but both are defective. Poetry teaches virtue by example as well as by percept (blend of abstract + concrete). The poet creates his own world where he gives only the inspiring things and thus poetry holds its superior position to that of philosophy and history.( Here the example can come like this Milton's Paradise Lost( Philosophical poem), Walt Whitman- a poet who used to deal with history mostly American Civil war)
In the poet's golden world, heroes are ideally presented and evils are corrupt. Didactic effect of a poem depends up on the poet's power to move. It depends up on the affective quality of poetry. Among the different forms of poetry like lyric, elegy, satire, comedy etc. epic is the best form as it portrays heroic deeds and inspires heroic deeds and inspires people to become courageous and patriotic. : Example: Beowulf( Heroic poem), the Odyssey

In this way, Sidney defines all the charges against poetry and stands for the sake of universal and timeless quality of poetry making us know why the poets are universal genius.

Literary Device of the Day:
Onomatopoeia:
It is a literary device, in which sounds of words echo their sense.
These words are used to communicate a sound,feeling or an idea.
For Example: " The buzzing of bees around the trees"
In this sentence the word "buzzing", when pronounced with emphasis on the "z" seems to imitate the sound made by bees as they fly around. This effect is known as Onomatopoeia.
Other words having similar effects are "crush", "sizzle", "crunch", "bang", "roar", "click" etc.
The following is another example of Onomatopoeia:
'Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.'( Fernhill- Dylan Thomas)
The rhythmical sound of a horse's soft neighing is imitated by the word "whinnying". This adds to the total sound effect of the poem by strengthening the imagery.