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Title: Le Morte d'Arthur by Elizabeth Bryan, Sir Thomas Malory ISBN: 0-679-60099-X Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 19 July, 1994 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.37 (51 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Wealth of legends but can we have some annotation please?!
Comment: Both Volumes 1 and 2 of Penguins Le Morte D'Arthur were filled with an endless fountain of legends and reading these books one knows why it provided inspiration for writers throughout the centuries. The sub plots alone (ex: King Mark and Sir Tristam's love for Isoud and Sir Palomides internal and external battles) provide the aspiring writer with a wealth of plots and ideas. But for the love of God Penguin could have included some clear annotation throughout the book. The footnotes are in dire need of a major overhaul. All Penguin gives us is a few pages of translation for the more obscure words, but the reader has to go back and forth between the story and the dictionary. To put it simply it's an enourmous pain to do this. A system of annotation similar to Signet's publishing of Paradise Lost & Regained (which is also an excellent copy of this classic which I highly recommend) would have put this set of books up to five stars. Once you get past the obscure English the book becomes surprisingly easy to read, far easier than Shakespeare or Chaucer. Malory, obviously, was not a writer like Chaucer but he did do us a favor and put the bulk of the French legends into a handy volume so we wouldn't have to search through obscure Old French romances. So think of this more as an anthology rather than a novel. For those of you struggling through the text, as I did, you can skip to almost any part of the book (except the very first and very last part) and the story you will read will make sense (this is of course assuming you understand the obscure English).
Rating: 5
Summary: Le Morte Darthur: Winchester edition
Comment: The Oxford World's Classics edition of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur is a superb text for students and the casually curious reader alike. It is the first publication of Le Morte Darthur based on the Winchester Manuscript designed for the general reader; more prominent are the editions which are compilations of Caxton's print version.
Editor Helen Cooper does a wonderful job of tackling the problem of presenting a coherent and comprehensive version of a medieval text for a twentieth century audience. Although this rendition of Le Morte Darthur is slightly abridged, it still retains its original charm. The preservation of a good deal of the vernacular in the text and the convenient glossary and footnotes really help to define the medieval setting of the story. The actual story of the life of King Arthur is most enjoyable as well, especially now that Cooper's introduction and explanatory notes enhance it. Malory's exposé of the Arthurian legend is lively enough that one can easily read this book for pleasure - the story-line and plot are more cleverly developed than, say, Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, which seems to present itself as a chronology of dubious events. In her introduction, Cooper provides a bit of a factual background for Malory and explains many of his subtle allusions intended for his contemporary medieval audience, all of which adds to the reader's understanding of Le Morte Darthur in the context of the fifteenth century. Scholarly readers may also find Cooper's annotated bibliography quite useful.
Rating: 2
Summary: Overbrief Translation
Comment: In his preface, the translator Keith Baines asserts that he attempted to "provide a concise and lucid rendering of Le Morte d'Arthur" and to clarify "those episodes which, for the purpose in hand, seemed obscure, and condensing those which seemed prolix."
As an example of this condensation in progress, Baines version of The Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake is 19 pages long. Steinbeck's translation of the same story (which had the goal of accurately preserving the story as told in the Winchester Ms.) runs over 100 pages. Throughout, Baines' edition is horribly abridged. He leaves most of the basic facts from the story intact (though some parts of his translation, especially concerning the obscurer genealogies, are plain wrong when compared to most other editions). However, he cuts all elements that make reading the legend enjoyable.
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Title: The Once and Future King by T. H. White ISBN: 0441627404 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: July, 1987 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Idylls of the King (Penguin Classic) by Alfred Tennyson, Baron Tennyson, J.M. Gray ISBN: 0140422536 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: September, 1989 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Lewis Thorpe, Thrope Lewis ISBN: 0140441700 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: January, 1977 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Arthurian Romances (Penguin Classics) by Chretien De Troyes, William W. Kibler, Chretien de Troyes, Carleton W. Carroll ISBN: 0140445218 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: June, 1991 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Portable Milton by John Milton, Douglas Bush ISBN: 0140150447 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: August, 1976 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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