Disability and Knighthood in Malorys Morte Darthur - 9780367665876

Taylor & Francis

This book considers the representation of disability and knighthood in Malory\u2019s Morte Darthur. The study asserts that Malory\u2019s unique definition of knighthood, which emphasizes the unstable nature of the knight\u2019s physical body and the body of chivalry to which he belongs, depends upon disability. As a result, a knight must perpetually oscillate between disability and ability in order to maintain his status. The knights\u2019 movement between disability and ability is also essential to the project of Malory\u2019s book, as well as its narrative structure, as it reflects the text\u2019s fixation on and alternation between the wholeness and fragmentation of physical and social bodies. Disability in its many forms undergirds the book, helping to cohere the text\u2019s multiple and sometimes disparate chapters into the \""hoole book\"" that Malory envisions. The Morte, thus, construes disability as an as an ambiguous, even liminal state that threatens even as it shores up the.