Content area
Abstract
Based on the popular contention that Sir Thomas Malory is a misogynistic writer, scholars often conduct inquiries into the role of Malory's women by categorizing his female characters as specific "types," or by defining "the feminine" against and in relation to his male characters. Yet when critics approach the Morte Darthur, expecting to find misogynistic representations of female characters, or searching for a monolithic definition of the feminine, they can overlook some of the dynamic and distinctly sovereign damsels who populate Malory's Arthurian world.
My own project strives to "re-imagine" the role of women in the Morte Darthur, not only by performing a feminist reading of the text and the changes Malory makes to his sources, but also by reading the text out from under a body of criticism that categorizes it as an inherently patriarchal narrative with correspondingly limited interpretive possibilities. Chapter one reviews the evolution of feminist medievalist scholarship and considers the obstacles and marginalization it has faced. Chapter two demonstrates that Malory uses Nynyve, his "chyff lady of the laake," to serve as an ideological guide for relations between women and men, but that Nynyve also challenges the very gender stereotypes the Morte Darthur has been accused of perpetuating. The third chapter focuses on Lyonet in "The Tale of Sir Gareth" to show how feminine movement and subversion exists even within the most patriarchal structures. Chapter four reverses gender studies contentions that women are always objects of exchange within homosocial bonds by demonstrating that in "Alexander the Orphan," men are exchanged within an economy defined by the desires of women. Chapter five points out the existence of multiple narratives within "Balin le Sauvage" and argues that the overwhelming critical deference to Balin's narrative has submerged all others. Finally, chapter six analyzes portrayals of Morgause in contemporary feminist Arthurian retellings, suggesting that her character shoulders the stereotypes from which other female characters are freed as feminist authors attempt to reconcile her sexuality and fertility with their own anxieties about the role of women in the Middle Ages.
