Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamlet53
Definitely The Once and Future King. That is unless you are required to read Le Morte D'Arthur for a class, or wish to for intellectual bragging rights. I read The Once and Future King in about the 7th grad, and once more a couple of years ago and enjoyed it both times. It is certainly the best telling of the 'Camelot' legend out there that is written at an adult level. It was also the main inspiration of the Broadway play and later Hollywood film Camelot.
I am not certain of this, but I do believe that Once and Future King was actually written in multiple parts. Certainly the latter part of the book is more adult reader in nature than is the first.
|
Well just a couple of thoughts.
The first is that I think a lot of the problems that people have with Mallory have to do with the rather archaic language. Mallory wrote in what is technically still Middle English and spelling wasn't standardized. A lot of the available editions try to be true to the original texts which can make it harder to read. I read it, for fun, in High School simply because I thought the stories were cool; but it also helped that I had an edition that modernized the English to a large degree.
The second is that "Le Morte" actually is a cycle of stories about Arthur. More akin to a collection of short novels than a single novel. I would say that at most, only about half of it is critical to the main storyline, and some parts, like Tristan and Iseult, are completely irrelevant to the main story (Arthur and his knights only appear occasionally in that part of the book). The stories themselves are certainly not high-brow however.
--
Bill