Identity in Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur

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Identity in Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur

It can be difficult to define the unifying themes of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur ; it can seem a tangle of random adventures mired with magic and religion, love and fate. What is the purpose behind all the seemingly similar adventures of so many similar knights? And what is the place that the books of Sir Trystram hold? These books make up the longest section of the work, yet Trystram plays no role in the search for the Holy Grail or the downfall of Arthur. There are many parallels drawn between Trystram and Launcelot: they are both the greatest knights of their time, both the greatest lovers, both become mad for a short time, etc. What distinguishes Trystram from Launcelot; what is his distinctive purpose within the themes of the work? I am indebted to Jill Mann’s “The Narrative of Distance, The Distance of Narrative in Malory’s Morte Darthur ” for helping me work out my answers to these questions. Though I do not fully agree with her theory that Le Morte is primarily concerned with the creation and obliteration of distance, I do find her ideas of narrative distance in relation to identity important.

Before discussing Sir Trystram and his role in Le Morte, I would like to use the episode of Sir Froll to illustrate the way that identity is important in the chivalric world of Arthur’s reign. Identity, in this chivalric world, has two aspects—public and private. Public identity is associated with fellowship and physicality; private identity with individuality and emotionality. A knight-errant is primarily concerned with his public identity, but identity (both public and private) obscures the seemingly straightforward duties of chivalry. Knights frequently beg...

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...ally join the Round Table, but he is murdered by his Uncle, King Mark. This is ironic because the one and only person Trystram tries to keep as part of his public and private identity causes his death. Also, Trystram cannot really avoid becoming a brother of the fellowship of the Round Table—the biggest network of ties in the book. In Arthur’s kingdom, public identity is so important that the privacy of one renowned knight is a threat. Arthur could not let Trystram stay unallied and, in the end, Trystram could not escape from the public renown that comes from being a knight of the Round Table.

Works Cited

Malory, Sir Thomas. Works. Ed. Eugene Vinaver. London: Oxford University Press, 1966.

Mann, Jill. "The Narrative of Distance, the Distance of Narrative in Malory’s Morte DArthur." The William Matthews Lectures 1991 delivered at Birkbeck College, London.

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