Preface

Summary

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.

The majority of the essays originated as papers presented at the conference Blood, Sex, Malory: An International Conference on the Morte Darthur, its sources and reception, held at the University of Leicester in April 2009. All of the essays have been extensively revised, and have also benefited from the comments of the anonymous peer reviewers and Elizabeth Archibald. We are pleased also to have been able to add Sally Mapstone's study to the collection. The conference's plenary papers were given by Elizabeth Archibald and Catherine La Farge, the latter of which appears in this volume. The conference encompassed a variety of topics, including a special session in which A. S. G. Edwards, Takako Kato and Orietta da Rold gave papers to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Oakeshott's recovery of the Winchester Manuscript. Nicola Royan chaired a ‘New Directions’ panel in which she considered the future of teaching Arthurian Literature. That panel also foregrounded new work being undertaken by graduate students in diverse areas of Malory studies, including transgressive magic and female users, and the mother-son relationship in the Morte Darthur.