Malory, Thomas - Larry D. Benson (essay date 1976)
Larry D. Benson (essay date 1976)
SOURCE: Benson, Larry D. “Knighthood in Life and Literature.” In Malory's Morte Darthur, pp. 163-85. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976.
[In the following essay, Benson contends that Malory's depiction of chivalric deeds and tournaments in Le Morte Darthur was based on incidents and traditions established by real-life knights.]
The case of chivalry in its more general sense is much the same as that of courtly love. Romance chivalry—the idea that a knight must perform deeds for the honor of his lady and to acquire “worship”—was in the twelfth century a literary ideal, with only an indirect relation to the life of the times. The early romances present a heightened and purified image of the life that some of the more sophisticated twelfth-century nobles might have wanted to live if they had been blessed with the wealth and leisure to do so. But we know of none who, gorgeously...
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