Sworn oaths, golden writing and decapitated heads: communication in Thomas Malory's Le Morte D’Arthur

• Main Author: Chwa, Yi Jie
• Other Authors: Katherine Hindley
• Format: Thesis-Master by Research
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Humanities::Literature
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/172810
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This thesis explores how forms of communication, namely the use of character speech, the written word, and the public display of visual objects interact with one another to strike a stylistic balance between describing the virtues and errors of characters in the Morte. Current Malorian scholarship has identified these three modes of communication as essential in interpreting the complex ethical situations in the text, but have long treated them as separate categories. Additionally, I also examine the use of oaths in the early parts of the text, namely Arthur’s coronation oath and the Pentecostal Oath, to examine how Malory sets a rudimentary framework on how we should expect Arthur and his knights to behave. Their resultant behaviours in the rest of Malory’s ‘Hoole Book’ often hearken back to rules stated in the oaths. I thus investigate how Malory’s rhetorical use of these three communicative modes strive to achieve a balance between both a criticism and celebration in the strengths and weaknesses of Arthur’s Round Table fellowship.