Еще менее века тому назад филологи располагали весьма скудными сведениями о Томасе Мэлори

1. Le Morted' Arthur's prose and its impact to other creatures
Arthurian material (tales, chronicles and novels about King Arter and the Knights of the Round Table) has long been the subject of research by literary critics. Already at the beginning of the 19th century, the first English translations and commentary editions of the Welsh legends about Arthur appeared, who in them does not yet appear as a king, but as a powerful leader. In the second half of the 19th century, the comparative-historical school of literary critics became interested in him. Among the scientists of this direction are the French Arbois de Zhyubanville and F. Lo, the Englishman D. Reese. The Russian scientist A.N. Veselovsky left a number of works devoted to the legends of Tristan and Isolde and the Holy Grail, at the beginning of the 20th century a serious and detailed work by the English scientist R. Fletcher "The Arthurian Material in Chronicles" was published /.
The figure of Thomas Malory himself in the works of this period is almost or not affected at all. Caxton's edition of Le Morte d'Arthur, reprinted many times over the course of five centuries, seemed indisputable in all respects: both in terms of its form as a chivalric novel, and in terms of its unity, and in the sense of an undoubted independent author's approach to interpreting the material, therefore, the subject of research is more often of all are the lines of development of individual images and themes of the novel in the general plan of the medieval tradition, but not the novel itself, the artistic value of which was forgotten, despite the fact that its existence awakened the creative imagination of writers for a number of centuries.
This situation was destined to change soon.
On July 23, 1934, in the library of Winchester College, librarian W. Oakeshott found a manuscript of Malory's novel, which had not been known until then and later became known as the Winchester Manuscript. Whether this manuscript belongs to Malory himself or whether it is a list made later from the original left by the writer, it remained and remains controversial, but it was clear that the novel that has come down to us in manuscript differs significantly from that published by W. Caxton in 1485, how about this evidenced by the articles and messages of Professor E. Vinaver published in literary publications of the 30s.
In the approach to the novel by Thomas Malory, there was a clear turning point, expressed at first in more than a decade of silence. True, in 1942 the work of the American philologist R. Wilson "Malory's Character Outline" was published ², but it was still a development of the old view of the novel, and the author of the work did not take into account the found manuscript of the novel.
Most literary scholars stood in confusion before a new fact in literature. What had been obvious before was now a mystery to be solved. There were disputes, discussions between supporters of different schools, It was only necessary to start ... And in 1947 the beginning was laid. The three-volume commented edition of the Winchester manuscript of Malory's novel, edited by E. Vinaver, broke the tense silence. Professor of the University of Manchester E. Vinaver repeatedly turned to the work of Thomas Malory. Back in the 1920s, he wrote two serious studies: in one of them he decides the place of the novel about Tristan and Isolde in Malory's work, in the other he pursues the goal of establishing the identity of Thomas Malory and gives a detailed description of the writer's work. With these books and many other studies, E. Vinaver gained a well-deserved authority among literary critics who were engaged in the study of Malory's work. It is not surprising that he was the first to turn to the revision of the topic that had been at the center of his attention for so long. And the revision to which E. Vinaver subjected Malory's novel "The Death of Arthur" was radical, in 1925 the manger in the work "The Romance of Tristan and Isolade in the work of Thomas Malory" considered the novel in the indisputable unity of all its parts and was called "a true encyclopedia of legends about King Arthur", if the researcher's approach to the novel remained the same in his monograph on Malory, then in 1947, in the preface to a three-volume commentary edition entitled "The Works of Thomas Malory" / "The Works of Sir Thomas Malory") Vinaver puts forward and defends views that are extremely opposite. In it, the point of view of Malory's book as a novel that appears before us in the unity of its constituent parts was completely discarded. Now the book has broken up into eight independent novels and appeared as a "sequence of separate novels" i.e. as a kind of anthology of chivalric novels. E. Winaver made the statement that the view of Thomas Malory's book as a single novel was formed by chance, as a result of a misunderstanding by the first publisher of the novel, W. Caxton, of the writer's final words: Here endeth Le Morte Darthur, which he adopted as the title of the entire book as a whole, while according to E. Vinaver , they should be attributed only to the last part of the book, or, using his terminology, to the last of this sequence of separate novels. As a result of this misunderstanding, says E. Vinaver, the book was published as an integral work of art under the general title "Death of Arthur". However, the researcher notes, only publishers of the 19th century share W. Caxton's mistake. publishers of the 16th and 17th centuries, such as Winkyn de Ward, Copland, East, wholly rejected this idea of Malory's book. Only in the edition of F. Hayslvud in 1816 the name of the novel was returned to the book.
Why does E. Vinaver consider W. Caxton's opinion to be erroneous? And does he see other, more significant reasons for this error than "misreading"? Yes, he sees, the main reason, in his opinion, was the difference in the interpretation of the material by Thomas Malory, a medieval writer, and William Caxton, a modern publisher. In these words, there is an essential a mistake made by the researcher himself, according to what principle he refers Thomas Malory to the English Middle Ages, and William Caxton to the Renaissance ( although he does not use this words, yet the epithet "modern" ( mod e rn ) ( in this context can only be interpreted in this sense ) ? This question remains unclear, and it cannot be otherwise, since E. Vinaver does not outline the framework of that cultural and historical era, in which Malory's novel "The Death of Arthur" was written, does not elucidate the complexity of the phenomena generated by it, one of which was Malory's book, but carried away by the study of the form of the work - a form that arose in the Middle Ages and is characteristic of him, with all confidence calls Thomas Malory medieval writer, the concrete historical essence of the book escapes E. Vinaver's view; it remains for him only evidence of "the author's development, from the first timid attempts in the field of artistic narration to the complete mastery of his last wonderful books" / "...the authors develop from hi s fir st timid attempts at imaginative narrative to the consummate mastery of his last great books." ³What is the criterion for evaluating this skill? We do not find an answer to this question either. It cannot be, since in the analysis Malory's novel is completely excluded from the historical context. That is why for E. Vinavera the statements statements like "no background exists for Malory" /"...no background exists for Malory/⁴
That is why only his style, which is considered as a set of speech devices, is attributed to the writer's artistic achievements, and although E. Vinaver made an attempt to draw an analogy between Malory's work and the works of the European revival, it was made only to confirm the point of view on the novel as a series of independent short stories. The very same thesis put forward by the author that the short story is a typical Renaissance genre of European literature turns out to be devoid of a historical basis, and the analogy does not convince, firstly, because even earlier Malory as a writer (hence, his artistic style) was attributed to the Middle Ages ; secondly, if Malory's work can be classified as a short story - a short story, then it is necessary first of all to outline the boundaries of this literary genre, to find out in what cultural and historical conditions and on what material this genre arises. Obviously, it is not enough to draw a parallel between England and Italy or England and France. To say that the short story is typical of the literature of the Renaissance means to outline a certain trend in the development of the literary process, but it must also be taken into account that under different conditions determined by the historical and cultural development of a particular country, this trend will be realized in its own way, and in the absence of these conditions, it can either change greatly, or not find its artistic embodiment at all. Indeed, the short story will not receive the distribution in England "as in Italy or France. English history of the 15th, 16th, 17th centuries is so full of tragic, bloody events, events so national that the scope of the short story, focused on highlighting a single event in private life, was cramped for their artistic comprehension and embodiment. Not without reason, from the 15th century in England, a special place begins to be occupied by drama, which will become the leading genre of literature of the English Renaissance, the novel of Thomas Malory is also full of drama . Berkovsky, “the short story is “news”, it conveys the new as it manifested itself in the behavior, in the thoughts of a person, in his connections with others, with the traditional world. ” ⁵Malory's work, indeed, was a reflection of the new in English life, a reflection of new ideals, new cultural requirements; it found expression and the ideological positions of the writer himself and manifested his new artistic method, putting him among the best works of the early English Renaissance. However , “the effect of novelty, experienced in all its suddenness, is the direct goal of storytelling in the short story .”⁶ This feature, which really defines the essence and character of the short story, we will not find in the novel by Thomas Mallery. The parts that make up Malory's novel lack the essential features of the classic Renaissance novel. Their features and the features of the entire novel as a whole are precisely the features of the genre of chivalric romance that developed in England during the late Middle Ages, and in the whole complex of these features, almost a canon, which received its new birth under Malory's hand.
Without dwelling now in detail on the analysis of the genre and compositional features of Malory's novel "The Death of Arthur", which will be given in the second chapter of this work, we note that the character of the work we have called a novel turns out to be, in essence, more complex and richer than a short story or a romance of chivalry. in their classic form. And this complexity and richness are due to the multi-plot construction of the novel and the inseparable unity that exists between each of its constituent plots.
The oldest English literary critic C.S. Lewis, like many other philologists, will subsequently give a high assessment to the work of E. Vinaver: "Profesaor Vinaver'e three-volume 'Works of Sir Thomas Mal o ry ... puts all previous work on this subject out of date. It is a very great work and a work which hardly any other man in England was qualified to perform."⁷
The concept of B. Vinaver found support among some philologists, among whom was M. Bradbrook , who spoke with a small but serious study " Sir Thomas Malory"
("Sir Thomas Malory". London , 1953) . However, E. Vinaver's concept, which is currently being revised by himself, almost immediately met with opposition in the person of a number of American scientists who entered into polemics with the publisher of "The Works of Sir Thomas Malory" in the press.
In 1951, R. Wilson published an article whose title asked: "How many books did Malory write?" (How many books Did Malory Write? - University of Tulane Studies in English. XXX.I95I).
In 1952, in the article the form of "The Death of Arthur" "D. Brewer defends the previously existing idea of Malory's novel as a whole work, his point of view is based on a thoughtful textual analysis of the work, allowing him to say with confidence :
"...what does justify him (Caxton - D.B- and us - in emphasizing the unity of the work, is its own construction and its own words."⁸
In 1966, R.M. Lumyansky /RMLumiansky/ entered into a dispute with E. Vinaver with the article "The Question of Unity in Malory's "Morte Darthur" - Tulan Studies in English.V .I955. Over the next decade, Lumyansky became the leader of a group of scientists working in various universities and colleges in the United States, but united by a commonality of views fundamentally opposed to the views of Vinaver. .E. Dikman, W. L. Gverin, T. V. Rumble and C. Moorman, who repeatedly criticized the concept of E. Vinaver and defended the unity of Thomas Malory's novel already during the 50s.