Briefly, On Malorian Print History

1. Briefly, On Malorian Print History Geoffrey B. Elliott, PhD geoffrey.b.elliott@gmail.com http://elliottrwi.com

2. Overview • Introduction • Context: Why Malory? • More about Why Malory • Malory’s Attractiveness • An Underlying Cause • Other Work • Notes

3. Context: Why Malory? • Recognized Quality • Critics such as Larry D. Benson, R.W. Chambers, E.K. Chambers, Jennifer R. Goodman, John Matthews, and Dorsey Armstrong acclaim the text. • Authors such as Twain, Tennyson, White, and Steinbeck base their works on Malory’s. • Pervasiveness • Note the above authors. • Any number of other works play with the kind of King Arthur depicted in Malory, much more so than that of other Arthuriana. • Note that, aside from Spenser and SGGK, other visions of Arthuriana than Malory’s are rarely if ever taught in secondary school or mainstream higher education.

4. More about Why Malory • Questions of Canon • Canon is an agreed-upon body of work meant to represent/epitomize a national/supra-national cultural identity. • There are problems with the agreements well worth treating—elsewhere. • US and UK literary canon derives from Victorian-era conceits. Malory came to attention then. • So what about Malory’s work made it so attractive to the Victorians?

5. Malory’s Attractiveness • Malory foregrounds some of the attraction: • Malory’s work is presented as something of a conduct manual. That is, it is portrayed in the text as exemplary of what to do and what not to do, attractive to those needing to reinforce and enforce class distinctions. • Some of the attraction is tacit: • In Malory, a king of Britain becomes the most powerful potentate; the British and their descendants in the US are thus heirs to the pinnacle of achievement. • But Malory had to be available…

6. An Underlying Cause • Malory’s text is printed repeatedly leading up to the Victorian era: • 1485, by Caxton • 1498 and 1529, by de Worde • 1557, by William Copeland • 1582, by Thomas East • 1634, by William Stansby • 1816, independently by Alexander Chalmers and Joseph Hazlewood • 1817, by Robert Southey

7. An Underlying Cause, cont’d. • The Victorians read the Regency editions (1816 and 1817). • The 1816 editors read Stansby. • Southey worked from Caxton. Being the Poet Laureate has benefits. • Stansby read East, and presumably back through Copeland to de Worde. • De Worde worked for Caxton and took over the printing business after Caxton died.

8. An Underlying Cause, cont’d. • Several pre-Victorian editions benefited from factors that emphasized the concerns Malory addresses: • Caxton was famous, so what he did received attention in itself, and he printed Malory. • De Worde benefited from Caxton’s fame. He also produced a fine edition of Malory. • Stansby was the largest private printer of his time. He also engaged the legal and political climate of the time. • The Regency editors were prominent in themselves. They also grappled with social change and longing for ennobled kingship. • The confluence of prominence and social situations, as well as textual changes, ensured Malory’s elevation.

9. Other Work • There are more details, as well as examples to bear out. • Study is ongoing, of course. • What of Copeland and East? • Refinements to earlier understandings and arguments are in progress. There is always more evidence to consider. • How might similar processes apply to other pieces deemed canonical, whether early on or in new, emergent canons?

10. Notes • The fraught nature of canon formation attracts no small amount of scholarly attention. Who makes decisions about “what counts” matters, as does what decisions are made—and arguments about both are unceasing. • The materials presented derive from my doctoral dissertation, The Establishment of Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur as the Standard Text of English-Language Arthurian Legend (UL Lafayette, 2012). • Thank you!