Description: Sex, blood, and gender have diverse associations in the Malorian tradition, yet their inter-relatedness and intersections are comparatively understudied. This present collection of essays is intended to go some way toward remedying the need for a sustained examination of blood ties, kinship, gender, and sexuality, and the prominence of these themes in Malory's work. They concentrate in particular upon the analyses of sexuality and sexual activity (and itslack or erasure) and the significance of blood (and blood-shedding) in the Morte Darthur, as well as the interconnections with gender (biological sex) and familial ("blood") relations in the Morte, its sources and its later reworkings. The result is a wide-ranging investigation into related but distinctive thematic preoccupations, including the national and kinship affiliations of Malorian knights, sibling relationships, deviant sexuality, and blood-spilling in martial and intimate contexts.
Contributors: Christina Francis, Megan G. Leitch, Helen Phillips, Carolyne Larrington, Lydia A. Fletcher, Kate McClune, Sally Mapstone, Caitlyn Schwartz, Maria SachikoCecire, Anna Caughey, Catherine LaFargeBrief description:
Having left school aged 15 no-one expected David Clark to become a senior teacher and academic. Following evening classes and then full time further education he has held numerous appointments in the academic world.
He has surveyed every major and many minor battlefield in the UK and has written a series of articles for History For All. He lives at Kettering, Northants.
Review Quotes: Open[s] up several new avenues for further research [and] succeeds in bringing to the forefront of Malory criticism a series of interesting, challenging, and fresh contributions, which will spark off new debates.-- "ANGLIA, 2013, 131 (1)"