General Editors: Elizabeth Archibald and David Johnson.
Sex, blood, and gender have diverse associations in the Malorian tradition, yet their inter-relatedness and intersections are comparatively understudied. This present collection of essays is intended to go some way toward remedying the need for a sustained examination of blood ties, kinship, gender, and sexuality, and the prominence of these themes in Malory's work. They concentrate in particular upon the analyses of sexuality and sexual activity (and its lack or erasure) and the significance of blood (and blood-shedding) in the 'Morte Darthur', as well as the interconnections with gender (biological sex) and familial ("blood") relations in the 'Morte', its sources and its later reworkings. The result is a wide-ranging investigation into related but distinctive thematic preoccupations, including the national and kinship affiliations of Malorian knights, sibling relationships, deviant sexuality, and blood-spilling in martial and intimate contexts.
Author(s): David Clark, Kate McClune (eds.)
Publisher: D. S. Brewer
Year: 2011
Language: English
Pages: 214
City: Cambridge
General Editors’ Foreword vii
Preface ix
List of Contributors x
Abbreviations xii
I. Reading Malory’s Bloody Bedrooms / Christina Francis 1
II. (Dis)Figuring Transgressive Desire: Blood, Sex, and Stained Sheets in Malory’s 'Morte Darthur' / Megan Leitch 21
III. Bewmaynes: the threat from the kitchen / Helen Phillips 39
IV. Sibling Relations in Malory’s 'Morte Darthur' / Carolyne Larrington 57
V. 'Traytoures' and 'Treson': the Language of Treason in the Works of Sir Thomas Malory / Lydia Fletcher 75
VI. 'The Vengeaunce of My Brethirne': Blood Ties in Malory’s 'Morte Darthur' / Kate McClune 89
VII. Malory and the Scots / Sally Mapstone 107
VIII. Blood, Faith and Saracens in 'The Book of Sir Tristram' / Caitlyn Schwartz 121
IX. Barriers Unbroken: Sir Palomydes the Saracen in 'The Book of Sir Tristram' / Maria Cecire 137
X. Virginity, Sexuality, Repression and Return in the 'Tale of the Sankgreal' / Anna Caughey 155
XI. Launcelot in Compromising Positions: Fabliau in Malory’s 'Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake' / Catherine La Farge 181
