The Queen's Feud: Women and Kinship in Malory's Morte Darthur
The impact of blood feud on the knights of the Round Table in Malory's Morte Darthur is clear and has been well studied. Likewise documented is the shift to an institutionalized political system focused on individual chivalry after the founding of the Round Table. This study focuses on the feuds and political changes, which also swept up the women in and around the Round Table including Nynyve, Lyonesse, Guenivere, and Morgawse. Individual chivalry gives women significant independence in action and changes the values they are celebrated for, but their family connections are always considered as primary motivations. The women of the Round Table, while trying to uphold individual chivalry and the Round Table value system, are nevertheless always judged by others in terms of the old blood feud loyalty system. These misinterpretations hasten and heighten the fall of the Round Table.
Comparative Literature, Literature in English, British Isles, Morte Darthur, Sir Thomas Malory, Guenever, Morgawse, Nynaeve
City University of New York - Graduate Center
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