‘ME LYSTE NAT THEREOF MAKE NO MENCION’: MALORY AND THE PLEASURE OF READING

Abstract

Taking into account Wolfgang Iser’s “The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach” this paper focuses on the ‘unwritten parts’ of Malory’s Morte Darthur, parts which generate the frustration of the reader’s expectations and make him/her “fill in the gaps left by the text itself.” As Malory’s principal interest lies in knighthood and kingship rather than in love, his ‘unwritten parts’ have to do with the private matters and spaces of his protagonists. The particular points at which Malory’s text produces frustration for the reader are those when longlasting and intricate quests come to an end and the Round Table fellowship returns to Camelot. As a rule, such occasions are marked by lavish feasts, which Malory always describes in a similar way, as plenteous and joyful, full of cheerful voices and resounding laughter. His sentences run smoothly reinforcing the reader’s thoughts of a ‘continuation’ because, after weeks and months of perilous adventures, the reader expects to spend some time in Camelot and learn about its inhabitants’ ways, mutual relations and everyday activities. Malory, however, refuses to be more specific on that and constantly thwarts such expectations by introducing sudden twists and turns which bring his narration back to the familiar ground of knightly quests. As “no author worth his salt will ever attempt to set the whole picture before his reader’s eyes,” it will be argued that by refraining from giving ‘the whole picture’ Malory shows as the author particularly careful about activating his readers’ imagination because “literary texts transform reading into a creative process that is far above mere perception of what is written”.