Reading Romance: Literacy, Psychology and Malory’s “Le Morte D’Arthur”

Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur is one of the most enduring achievements of English literary history. This study offers a new interpretation of this seminal version of the Arthurian Romances beginning with recognition of its status as one of the first literary works to be mass produced by the typographic age. Acknowledging that literacy revolutionizes the human thought world, and maintaining the validity of exploring the psychological content of traditional literature, a specific psychic preoccupation is identified in Malory’s namely, man’s struggle to accommodate the conflicting demands of his divided self.