Why Do Some Stories Keep Returning?

: Modern Arthurian Fiction

and the Narrative Structure of Romance
Mary Frances Zambreno

Essays in Medieval Studies, Volume 26, 2010, pp. 117-127 (Article)

Published by West Virginia University Press

DOI: 10.1353/ems.2010.0006

For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ems/summary/v026/26.zambreno.html

Access Provided by BTCA Universitat de Barcelona at 09/22/12 5:29PM GMT

Chapter 9

Why Do Some Stories Keep

Returning? Modern Arthurian
Fiction and the Narrative
Structure of Romance
Mary Frances Zambreno
Elmhurst College

Given the extraordinary number of Arthurian narratives produced over the

last few centuries, a modern scholar might be forgiven for hypothesizing that the
famous epitaph Rex Quondam Rexque Futurus refers to the fictional returns of
King Arthur rather than to any more mystical concept. Arthur is not the only figure
from medieval literature to be reborn in modern dress, but he is certainly one of
the most common, with representations in epic and lyric poetry, contemporary
cinema, fantastic and historical fiction, comic books, and even role-playing games.
According to an impressive but incomplete online bibliography maintained by
Curtis W. Bobbitt, between 1990 and 2005, approximately 200 Arthurian novels
were published or republished in English, and 16 short story anthologies.1 By any
standard, that is a lot of Arthur.
As significant, I believe, is the fact that in all this extravagance of Arthur, it
is primarily the Arthur of romance who is best known to modern readers. Say the
words King Arthur to any ten people, and at least nine will immediately think
of noble knights in anachronistic plate armor and beautiful ladies in pointy hats.
The more sophisticated will remember the Lancelot-Guinivere triangle, Camelot,
Excalibur, Merlin, the myth of the Once and Future King, and, of course, the Holy
Grail, which has been sought by characters as diverse as Monty Python, Indiana
Jones, and Batman.2 Despite occasional attempts by writers to tell the story of the
historical Arthur, the British war-leader who fought Saxon invaders, it is most
often King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table who return to fictional life.
As testimony to the dominance of the Romance Arthur, even authors who begin by
writing about the Historical Arthur sometimes find themselves writing romance as
well. For example, Rosemary Sutcliffe published two novels about the historical
Arthur (The Lantern Bearers, 1959, and Sword at Sunset, 1963), but she also wrote

Essays in Medieval Studies 26 (2010), 117-127. Illinois Medieval Association. Published

electronically by the Muse Project at http://muse.jhu.edu.

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a Young Adult trilogy based on Malory in the early 1980s. In fact, in the Authors
Note to the first volume of that Malory-based trilogy, Sutcliffe argues that behind
the legends of Arthur as we know them today, there stands a real man even as she
justifies using the legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table in her
current narrative.3 Perhaps an even more telling commentary on the dominance of
Romance Arthur is Gillian Bradshaws determinedly Celtic Gawain trilogy, Down
the Long Wind, which contains no Lancelot, no Grail, and no Round Tablebut
which still somehow manages to describe Arthurs Queen Gwenhwyfar as having
a destructive and adulterous affair.4 Clearly, it is the Arthur of Camelot and not the
Historical Arthur who speaks to us most often and most powerfully. In this essay
I will discuss some of the reasons for why this is the case. What is it about Arthurian legend that keeps the stories being told and retold, sometimes changed but
still recognizable? My answer is that the narrative structure of Arthurian romance,
the way in which the tales were originally organized and presented, provides an
opportunity for later generations to remake the Matter of Britain into something
relevant to their own needs. Audiences and authors find that these tales serve to
generate and encapsulate questions as important to the modern world as they were
to the 12th century.
Several scholars have, in fact, already commented on the appeal of Arthur in
terms of the mutability or plasticity of the legendthe ways in which the material
can be and has been reshaped for new audiences. For example, Donald Hoffman
and Elizabeth S. Sklar point out that the Matter of Arthur may be seen as an
empty receptacle, waiting to be filled with whatever substance may speak to the
individual and cultural moment.5 Separately, Sklar also discusses the generous
and infinitely expanding cast of characters that gives Arthurian legend its extraordinary adaptability.6 Meanwhile, others have concentrated on the popularity of
romance in general: W. P. Ker connects the popularity of the genre to its mystery
and fantasy; Northrop Frye points to the sensationalism of romance as popular
fiction designed . . . to encourage irregular or excessive sexual activity; John
Finlayson focuses on the adventure and self-discovery contained in romances; Flo
Keyes argues that the medieval romance and modern speculative fiction share an
appeal that rests on the idealistic belief that man can be more than he currently
is; and Nicola McDonald discusses English popular romance as the pre-eminent
imaginary space in medieval English literature in part due to the pleasure that
results from the gap that exists between the conventions that structure romance
. . . and the transgressions that its narrative produces.7
As it happens, I do not disagree with these approaches to the popularity of
romance in general or of Arthurian romance in particular. I suspect that they are
all probably valid and certainly usefulthey are not mutually exclusive, after all.
Rather, I would simply like to add a consideration of the narrative structure of romance, particularly of Arthurian romance, to the discussion. It is, I believe, the very
piecemeal nature of Arthurian narrative, the way in which it has been assembled

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from various sources, that encourages later adaptations. I deliberately take the word
piecemeal from W.R.J. Barrons discussion of the Malory in English Medieval
Romance.8 However, while Barron focuses on Malorys possible thematic unity in
the Morte Darthur, I am more interested in the implications of the actual bits and
pieces of Arthurian legend that were available for Malory to gather togethernot
the individual tales, really, but that a narrative tradition of intertwined tales existed
at all. In his analysis of the beginnings of romance as a genre, D. H. Green notes
that Chrtiens romances are located in an undeveloped interlude between wars in
Geoffreys more historical account, and that other romance authors make similar
use of such blank spots in the historical record, including the non-Arthurian historical record.9 Green dubs these interludes windows of opportunity, a concept
that I find worth exploring. It seems to me that by its very nature the Matter of
Britain contains many such windows, gaps that may be filled in by other stories,
new stories, and perspectives omitted from or slighted in the original narrative
and that these gaps may impact the human tendency to finish what is perceived as
incomplete. Psychologists call this tendency confabulation, and believe it to be
the source of a certain kind of false memories. To law enforcement officials, it is
more properly known as eyewitness confabulation: basically, when eyewitnesses
to a crime or an accident do not see some necessary linking action in a sequence
of events, their minds fill in the blanks, creating a more coherent narrative out of
otherwise confusing bits and pieces.10 One reason for the amazing durability of the
Arthurian legend, I believe, is its specific appeal to a kind of literary confabulation
inspired by the over-arching narrative structure of Arthurian romance: the space,
or spaces, contained in the framework of the story allow the creative imagination
of later authors room in which to work.
I locate an early and important acknowledgement of these gaps in Malory.
The Morte Darthur is, of course, the immediate source for many later versions
of the story, including those by Tennyson, Twain, and T.H. White (to name a few
well-known examples). For a larger sample, I examined the Authors Notes in later
Arthurian novels, and Malory was consistently present. I have already mentioned
that Rosemary Sutcliffe lists Malory as a source for her Young Adult trilogy. So
does Catherine Christian in The Pendragon (1978); Peter David in his comic
fantasy Knight Life (1987, revised 2002); Bernard Cornwall in The Winter King
(1995); and Catherine MacKenzie in Guineveres Gift (2008). Jane Yolen opens
her Sword of the Rightful King (2003) with an epigram from Malory, while Mike
Barr, co-creator with Brian Bolland of the comic book maxi-series Camelot 3000,
is even more emphatic, declaring that his own work would not exist had not Sir
Thomas Malory written Le Morte Darthur.11 Malorys importance as a direct
source of Arthurian lore thus makes his version of the story a good place to begin.
Even more significant, perhaps, is that Malory is also a reteller already
filling in gaps in the legend by pulling disparate and diverse stories and text together, possibly even creating the occasional tale from analogues or from his own

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imagination. However, and more intriguingly for my purposes, he also frequently

omits episodes that were contained in his sources and deliberately calls attention
to those omissions by employing what Felicia Riddy has termed open-ended
closure in the colophons to several tales.12 For example, in the colophon to Book
One, Malory declares:
And this booke endyth whereas Sir Launcelot and Sir Trystrams com to courte. Who that woll make ony more, lette him
seke other bookis of Kynge Arthure or of Sir Launcelot or Sir
Trystrams . . . (12)
In other words, if the reader wants more stories, he is going to have to go find them
for himselfor write (make) them for himself. The Tale of Sir Launcelot and
Quene Guenyvere ends with an even more pertinent reference to omitted material:
And so I leve here of this tale, and overlepe great bookis of Sir
Launcelot, what grete adventures he ded whan he was called le
Shyvalere de Charyot. For, as the Freynshe book sayth, because
of dispyte that knyghtes and ladyes called hym the Knight that
rode in the Charyot, lyke as he were juged to the jubett, therefore in the despite of all them that named hym so, he was caryed
in a charyotte a twelvemonth . . . and bycause I have loste the
very mater of Shevalere de Charyot, I departe from the tale of
Sir Launcelot; and here I go unto the Morte Arthur. (644-645)
Malory may or may not be being disingenuous in declaring that he has lost Chrtiens Knight of the Cart, but he has in any case pointed the reader to a gap in his
own narrative that could be filled in by further readingor by further storytelling.
In this sense, the colophon is almost an invitation: it announces that the adventures
of Sir Lancelot are not complete, Hoole Booke of Kyng Arthur or no, and that
there are other stories remaining to be told.
Malorys recounting of the death or not-death of Arthur in his final tale seems
to me to make this point even more profoundly. To be perfectly clear, I do not intend
to argue that Malory and his colophons are responsible for the gaps in Arthurian
legend; rather, I hypothesize that Malory codified what was inherent in his own
sources.13 In this context, Malorys version of the legend turns his conclusion into
a To Be Continued in disguise. Although he appears to believe that Arthur is
dead and buried, he also describes the ship and the three queens meant to convey
the king to Avalon, quotes Arthurs famous Once and Future epitaph, and repeats
the legend of Arthurs return in what I cannot resist calling a magnificent display
of weasel-wording:
Yet som men say in many partys of Inglonde that Kynge Arthure
ys nat dede, but had by the wyll of Oure Lorde Jesu into another
place; and men say that he shall come agayne, and he shall wynne
the Holy Crosse. (689)

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Some men saybut not Malory. He is just repeating it. Furthermore, immediately after describing Bedivere fainting at Arthurs tomb, Malory adds: Thus
of Arthur I fynde no more written in bokis that bene auctoryzed, nothir more of
the verry sertaynt of hys dethe harde I never rede (689). He does not know for
certain that Arthur is dead, or that Arthur will return; he has never read the right
book to be sure one way or another, and so he must leave the question still open.
Given Malorys earlier references to other books, tales that he has not told, the
implication is inevitable: a book about the death or return of Arthur might still be
out there, somewhereor might still be written, by some other author. I defy any
reader or writer of modern fiction, contemplating that passage, not to wonder just
what might happen if Arthur did returnunder what circumstances he might do
so, and for what purpose.
At this point, we move from the inspiration for modern Arthurian fiction to
its actuality. It is my contention that modern authors begin by noticing parts of the
story of Arthur that must have occurred but that have not yet been told; they then
tell those stories, filling in the gaps. Some are even aware of being attracted to a
particular gap in the narrative, as when Mary Stewart writes in the Authors Note
to The Hollow Hills, her second Arthurian novel:
The story of The Hollow Hills covers the hidden years between
that date [470 A.D., postulated by some authorities as the year
of Arthurs birth] and the raising of the young Arthur to be warleader (dux bellorum) or, as legend has had it for more than a
thousand years, King of Britain. What I would like to trace here
are the threads I have woven to make this story of a period of
Arthurs history which tradition barely touches, and history
touches not at all.14
Obviously Arthur must have had a childhood, a young manhoodand that story
remains available for the telling (or retelling, given that T. H. White has also covered this same ground). In fact, stories of the youth and coming of age of various
Arthurian characters are relatively common in modern Arthurian fiction: there are
several novels about Arthurs childhood (by A. A. Attanasio, Parke Godwin, and
Helen Hollick, as well as Stewart and White), Merlins childhood (Stewart again, as
well as Jane Yolen and Thomas Barron), Gawains childhood (Gillian Bradshaw),
and Mordreds childhood (Nancy Springer, Elizabeth Wein, and Haydn Middleton).
We also have stories of what was going on in Uther Pendragons kingdom while
Arthur was being conceived and born (see David Gemmells 1988 The Ghost King,
one of his Atlantis novels; and Kathleen Gulers Macsens Treasure series, 19982009) and of what happened in Britain during the years immediately following
Arthurs death (by Coningsby Dawson in 1911, Parke Godwin in 1984, and Patrick
McCormick in the year 2000). Obviously, these spaces in the legend must necessarily have been filled by some events, even if the source material does not elaborate
on them, and modern authors have provided new narratives to fill in the blanks.

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One particularly useful example of a novel focusing on such eventsnecessary, but not referred to in the legendis Anne McCaffreys Black Horses for
the King (Orlando, 1995); as McCaffrey points out in her Authors Note, knights
must have horses, and horses have certain needs that must be metand that is the
particular story she is creating for her readers about a facet of those times.15 In
this case, it is not a part of the story that is missing, so much as the mundane details
that must have surrounded the heroic event described by legend. Similarly, other
authors offer stories not of the king or his noble knights, but of the servants, serfs
and squires who must have attended them; for examples, see Gillian Bradshaws
second Gawain novel Kingdom of Summer (1982), Cary James King and Raven
(1995), and Peter Teleps 1995-1996 Squire, Squires Blood, and Squires Honor,
respectively. More, the existence of any individual character in the legend, however
sketchily described, implies an untold story: a great many Arthurian novels focus on
such individuals. Round Table knights who have received their own novels include
Kay, Mordred, Tristan, Owain, Lancelot, Perceval, Galahad, Gawain, Gareth, Geraint, Bors, and Aglovale de Galis (Clemence Housman, The Life of Sir Aglovale de
Galis, 1905; rpt. 2000). Even the story of Arthurs son Loholt, scarcely more than
named in Malory, has received some attention.16 The story of Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight has been retold and expanded by Anne Elliot Crompton in her 1997
novel, Gawain and Lady Green, as has the tale of Gawain and the Loathly Lady
by Gwen Rowley (Knights of the Round Table: Gawain, 2007). Gawain is usually
Arthurs nephew, but in some novels he is Arthurs heir (see Rowley), Merlins
godson (H. Warner Munn, Merlins Godson, 1976), or a reluctant wizard in his
own right (see Bradshaw). Lancelot is most often Guineveres lover, of course,
but he has been depicted as her half-brother (Rowley, Knights of the Round Table:
Lancelot, 2006), or as Mordreds lover (Douglas Clegg, Mordred, Bastard Son,
2006). Merlin has also received attention from authors other than Mary Stewart:
he has been a Machiavellian pedophile (Allan Massie, Arthur the King, 2003), the
tutor of a relatively heroic Mordred (Clegg, again), and a zombie-hunter (in Robert
Holdstocks The Iron Grail, a 2002 novel that also features Jason, of Jason and the
Argonauts). Thomas Barrons series of five novels about the wizards youth and
childhood is collectively titled The Lost Years of Merlin (1996-2000; that is also the
title of the first book in the series), while Ray Catties manipulative Merlin works
to bring about Arthurs birth and rule in a novel that covers only the years between
the death of Ambrosius and Arthurs victory over Lot (Ard Righ: The Sword on the
Stone, 2005). Merlin has been a busy man.
The women of Arthurian legend have also been busy. A specifically femaleif
not actively feministperspective seems to be particularly attractive to many authors; Marion Zimmer Bradleys 1982 Mists of Avalon was among the earliest and
is probably the best-known of the novels from the female point of view, but there
are others. To list just a few, Courtney Jones tells the story of Arthur from Morgan
le Fays perspective in Witch of the North (1992), as does Nancy Springer in I Am

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Morgan le Fay (2001). Vera Chapman has written novels about Morgan, Morgans
grand-niece Vivian, Lynett, Morgause, and King Arthurs daughter Ursulet, while
Rosalind Miles has produced both a recent trilogy about Isolde and an earlier one
about Guinevere. Gillian Bradshaws third Gawain novel is narrated by Guinevere,
and Parke Godwin uses her as the narrator for his Beloved Exile (1984). Mercedes
Lackeys 2009 Gwenhwyfar: The White Spirit was inspired by the Welsh Triad of
The Three Guineveres rather than by Malory, according to Lackeys Authors
Note, but it is still about Guinevere. Alice Borchardts Tales of Guinevere books
begin with Guineveres early childhood and describe her becoming a queen in
her own right before ever meeting Arthur. Other authors intrigued by Guinevere
include Nancy McKenzie (1994, 1995), Sharan Newman (1981, 1983, 1985), and
Persia Woolley (1987, 1990, 1991), all of whom have written multiple novels about
her. Clearly, wondering what the women were thinking and doing while the men
were off on quests or fighting battles has inspired compelling elaborations on the
Arthurian legend.
Not, however, as compelling as the stories of Arthurs Return. Works dealing with the rebirth of Arthur in the modern or post-modern world are perhaps the
largest single category of contemporary Arthurian fiction, and the To-Be-Continued
gap of the Once and Future Kings story has been filled in an astonishing variety of
ways.17 Arthur has been reborn to run for mayor of New York (Peter David, Knight
Life, 1987; revised 2002) and later President of the United States (Davids sequel,
One Knight Only, 2003), to fight alien invaders (Barr and Boland, Camelot 3000),
to win World War II (Donald Barthelme, The King, 1990; Dennis Lee Anderson,
Arthur King, 1995), and to restore civilization to a Britain devastated by nuclear
holocaust (Pamela Services Young Adult novel, The Winter of Magics Return,
the first volume of her Tomorrows Magic/New Magic series, 1985-2009). In one
series, the king begins his new life as a vulnerable child being protected by the FBI
(Molly Cochran and Warren Murphy, The Forever King, 1992), while in another
he is asked to save a far future world of fairies, goblins, and oppressive technology
(see Robert N. Charrettes trilogy, 1994-1995). Often he can be accompanied by
a court that has been reincarnated or rediscovered intact, with all of their problematical history; or else Merlin returns first and copes with the modern world by
himself (Fred Saberhagen, Dominion, 1982; Simon Hawke, The Wizard of Camelot,
1995). He then might awaken Arthur to face his royal destiny, whatever it is (again,
Pamela Service in The Winter of Magics Return)or not, as in Saberhagen and
Hawke. Finally, to offer one last offbeat premise, in Joan Aikens alternate world
fantasy The Stolen Lake (2000), Arthur returns as a ships steward in the Royal
Navy, who discovers that the very determined and repulsively undead Guinevere
has been waiting impatiently for himin Brazil.
One could not blame the king for being a little confused. That readers are not
confused is, in my opinion, testimony to the enduring strength of the story, and to
the tradition of adding to the story by filling in its empty spaces. For this reason,

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it seems to me that the sheer variety of modern Arthurian fictionas well as its
exuberant vitalityowes its existence at least in part to the open spaces built into
the broad sweep of Arthurian romance. There is room for Twains attack on hypocrisy in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court and for Bernard Cornwells
condemnation of religious fanaticism in the Warlord Chronicles; the importance
that Susan Cooper gives to the individuals free choice in The Grey King (1975)
speaks more to a modern world than a medieval onebut the legend easily opens
up to express that concept as well as others.18 In his discussion of myth and folktale
in The Secular Scripture, Northrop Frye mentions what may be a related attitude
towards storytelling as a whole:
In secular literature, before copyright laws and individual claims
to stories are set up, a standard relating to completeness in telling traditional stories seems often to be implied. Others have
told this story before, the author give us to understand, but Im
going to tell it better and more fully, so you wont have to refer
to anything else for missing features.19
I call Fryes standard of completeness a related attitude because it appears to
have attracted authors of modern Arthurian fiction, too: in the same Authors Note in
which she claims to have followed Malory in the main, Rosemary Sutcliffe adds:
. . . but I have not followed him slavishlyno minstrel ever
follows exactly the songs that have come down to him from the
time before. Always he adds and leaves out and embroiders and
puts something of himself into each retelling.20
Even more relevant, perhaps, is Joan Aikens comment in the Authors Note to The
Stolen Lake: Everybody knows that the ancient British didnt migrate to South
America when the Saxons invaded their country; this is just my idea of what it
would have been like if they had.21 By her own admission, then, Aiken is doing
no more than filling a gap she has found in her source material, adding her own
story to the Arthurian legend. Her wild tale of Arthur being reborn in Brazil is
really just one more example of the kind of finish-the-storytelling impulse (as
opposed to the story-telling impulse) that I have termed literary confabulation;
it reinforces my belief that we are not done with Arthur yet. His story is still not
fully told; indeed, it may never be fully told, at least in part because the needs of
the audience keep changing.
The never-ending nature of the story is occasionally acknowledged by modern
authors themselves. For example, Barr and Bolands Camelot 3000 ends not with
the death of Arthur, but with the discovery and triumphant flourishing of Excalibur
by a stereotypical Bug-Eyed-Monster, accompanied by a ghostly image of the king
looming sternly over him/her/it/. Thus, the Arthurian legend continues, albeit on
another world and in good tentacles rather than hands.22 More evocative is John M.
Fords Winter Solstice, Camelot Station, the World-Fantasy Award-winning poem

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about Christmas arrivals at the Camelot railway terminal in which the literary and
cultural references place Arthur at the center of a vast web of allusion, new stories
entwined with old ones (Pellinore, for example, mutters about having been cheated
by Gutman and Cairo, while Palomides travels via the Direct-Orient Express).23
After describing the appropriate arrival of each famous knight, Ford returns to the
image of a bustling railway station, eternally in process:
At the great glass station, motion goes on,
The extras, the milk trains, the varnish, the limited . . .
The knowledge that the train may stop but the line goes on;
The train may stop
But the line goes on.
So too does Arthurian romance. The ending is not the end, but a new kind of fictional beginningand there are always new stories to tell.
Notes
1

For instance, Bobbitt includes Jane Yolens 2003 Young Adult novel Sword of
the Rightful King but not her 1990s Young Merlin trilogy; nor does he reference such variant Arthurian works as Jo Waltons Sulien ap Gwien series
(2000-2004), which is based on Arthurian legend but which uses original
characters; see Curtis W. Bobbitt, Bibliography of 213 Novels with Arthurian
Characters and Themes, University of Great Falls-Montana, http://inkwire.
org/Arthurian-Novels.htm. Many, though not all, of the novels I will mention
later are listed and described in this bibliography.

In Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Dir. Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones,
1975), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Dir. Steven Spielberg, 1989), and
Chuck Dixon and John Van Fleet, Batman: The Chalice (New York, 1999),
respectively.

See Sutcliffe, The Sword and the Circle (New York, 1981), p. 7. Authors Notes
are usually a list of sources that an author acknowledges using as background
or for research; they are especially common in Young Adult novels, where
they also tend to serve as a recommendation of works for Further Reading.

With Bedwyr, presumably since Lancelot is not available. See Hawk of May
(New York, 1980), Kingdom of Summer (New York, 1981), and especially In
Winters Shadow (New York, 1982).

Elizabeth S. Sklar and Donald Hoffman, Preface, King Arthur in Popular

Culture (Jefferson, 2002), p. 6.

Elizabeth S. Sklar, Marketing King Arthur: The Commodification of Arthurian

Legend, King Arthur in Popular Culture, p. 9.

See, respectively, W. P. Ker, Epic and Romance (London, 1922); Northrop

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Frye, The Secular Scripture (Cambridge, 1976); John Finlayson, Definitions
of Medieval Romance, Chaucer Review 15.1-2 (1980): 44-62, 168-181; Flo
Keyes, The Literature of Hope in the Middle Ages and Today (Jefferson, 2006);
and Nicola McDonald, A Polemical Introduction, Pulp Fictions of Medieval
England: Essays in Popular Romance, ed. Nicola McDonald (Manchester,
2004), pp. 1-18. McDonalds spirited defense of romance as medieval popular
fiction is especially relevant to any discussion of modern popular fiction, I
believe.

See W.R.J. Barron, English Medieval Romance (London, 1987), pp. 132-176,
especially pp. 148-149.

D. H. Green, The Beginnings of Medieval Romance: Fact and Fiction (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 178ff.

10 For more technical discussion of the psychological concept of confabulation,

see William Hirstein, ed., Confabulation: Views from Neuroscience, Psychiatry,
Psychology, and Philosophy (Oxford, 2009).
11 See Opening Knight, Barrs introduction to the graphic-novel reissue of
Mike W. Barr and Brian Boland, Camelot 3000 (New York, 1988).
12 See the excerpt from Riddys argument reprinted as Divisions, in Le Morte
Darthur, Ed. Stephen H.A. Shepherd (New York, 2004), pp. 882-894, especially
p. 883. All of the following quotations from Malorys text have been taken
from this edition.
13 K.S. Whetter, Understanding Genre and Medieval Romance (Ashgate, 2008),
has argued that the unhappy ending of the Morte Darthur turns Malorys narrative from a true romance into a tragic-romance, mixing typical romance
features with something different and darker (pp. 99-149). Without attempting
to define the genre of romance myself (especially since that definition has frequently included what McDonald refers to as the inviolable happy ending, p.
16), I would like to point out that the ending of the Morte Darthur does provide
a certain amount of satisfactory closure, if not happiness: Malorys entire tale
is told, including the ultimate destinies of all the main charactersexcept,
possibly, the final fate of the king himself.
14 See The Hollow Hills (New York, 1973), p. 494. Stewart is a firm proponent
of the historicity of Arthur, stating both here and in the Authors Note to The
Crystal Cave (New York, 1970) that Arthur was a real person (The Crystal
Cave, p. 492). However, she is specific that her books are not intended to be
scholarship or history, and that she uses whatever sources seem to suit her
particular narrative; she opens the Authors Note for The Last Enchantment
(New York, 1979) by commenting that According to legend, of which the
main source is Malorys Morte Darthur, Merlin stayed above ground only a
short while after Arthur was crowned (p. 509)and that the story of Merlins
last days is the one she has chosen to tell in this third book.

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15 See Anne McCaffrey, Black Horses for the King (Orlando, 1995), pp. 178-179.
16 Although Cherith Baldrys Exiled from Camelot (2001) is more properly about
Kay, since Loholts arrival at court and subsequent murder is merely what
drives the initial plot.
17 The only other Arthurian plot-line to approach these numbers is the straightforward retelling of the life and death of Arthurand those retellings probably
should be further divided as either Historical Arthur novels (usually set in
Roman Britain) and Romance Arthur novels (set at Camelot, or the equivalent). For a useful consideration of categories of modern Arthurian stories,
see Jason Tondro, Camelot in Comics, King Arthur in Popular Culture, pp.
169-181; Tondro is describing Arthurs presence in recent comic books, but
his discussion is also applicable to other genres, in my opinion.
18 Coopers The Grey King is part of her five-volume YA fantasy series, The
Dark Is Rising (1965-1977); the Dark, or evil, oppresses (corrupts, uses, and
ultimately destroys) individuals, while the Light requires its adherents to choose
freelythough the choice is often bleak and the final price, a harsh one. See
Raymond H. Thompson, Darkness over Camelot: Enemies of the Arthurian
Dream, New Directions in Arthurian Studies, ed. Alan Lupack (Cambridge,
2002), pp. 97-104, for a more detailed discussion of the ways in which modern
Arthurian fiction stresses the modern conflict between freedom and oppression (p. 98).
19 Frye, The Secular Scripture, p. 12.
20 The Sword and the Circle, p. 8.
21 See Joan Aiken, The Stolen Lake (New York, 1981). Aikens Authors Note is
not paginated.
22 The panel is captioned: . . . And the road goes ever on . . . Though neither
The Hobbit nor The Lord of the Rings is overtly Arthurian, I imagine that the
reference to Tolkien is entirely intentional, one 20th century version of epic
bowing to another.
23 See John M. Ford, Winter Solstice, Camelot Station, Invitation to Camelot,
ed. Parke Godwin (New York, 1988), pp. 243-250.