The legends of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table have inspired some of the greatest works of literature--from Cervantes's Don Quixote to Tennyson's Idylls of the King. Although many versions exist, Malory's stands as the classic rendition. Malory wrote the book while in Newgate Prison during the last three years of his life; it was published some fourteen years later, in 1485, by William Caxton. The tales, steeped in the magic of Merlin, the powerful cords of the chivalric code, and the age-old dramas of love and death, resound across the centuries.
The stories of King Arthur, Lancelot, Queen Guenever, and Tristram and Isolde seem astonishingly moving and modern. Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur endures and inspires because it embodies mankind's deepest yearnings for brotherhood and community, a love worth dying for, and valor, honor, and chivalry.
2nd reading : The Noble Tale of the Sankgreal; I had to read this for a seminar essay, and I don't think it is among the best tales about the Knights. This is where they all need to show their virtues, and the knights who have not yet been sexually active are the ones deemed the most virtuous. Less humourous than other tales, and quite slow to read, however, it is all still very interesting to me, as the legends of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table are part of the beginning of literature as we know it. One reason why it was slow reading is because the version I read is not in modern English, so the wording and the syntax is quite different, and it takes a lot longer to read and to make complete sense of it all.
