SUMMERS, KAREN CRADY, Ph.D. Reading Incest - The University ...

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material for adaptation or translation into English prose, show that shift in the
centre of gravity away from the comforting ideologies of the verse romances, with
their calamities avoided or redeemed and political and familial order restored, to
narratives that precisely deny those comforts. (820-22)
Felicity Riddy agrees that the form Malory chose for his book highlights his concern with
the incest which tore the kingdom apart. While the first seven books are linked to each
other, however tenuously, by their “juxtaposition in a single volume, [the continuity] is
spatial as well as temporal” (882). But the final two books deconstruct the unity of the
text and of the Round Table, and the last book contains the betrayal by Mordred and the
realization by Arthur and Lancelot that the “noble felyshyp of the Rounde Table ys
broken for ever” (654). The Morte d’Arthur begins ignobly, with sexual transgression
and deception on the part of Arthur’s father, leaving Arthur as the unrecognized son of a
disquised Uther’s adultery, spotting the Pendragon reputation, and questioning the
generic conventions of romance.
When Arthur was crowned king, his most immediate task was to bring order to
his land, which had devolved into confusion and turmoil during the time after Uther’s
death. Many of the knights and kings resented Arthur and demanded from Merlin to
know “For what cause is that boye Arthur made your kynge?” (11). But Arthur’s actions
are less like the most renowned Christian king than they are like those of Gower’s
wrathful kings. The wars Arthur fought to consolidate his kingdom were finally ended
by Merlin, who chided Arthur for excessive slaughter: “Hast thou nat done inow? Of
three score thousande thys day hast thou leffte on lyve but fyftene thousand! Therefore
hit ys tyme to sey ‘Who!’ for God ys wroth with the for thou woll never have done!”