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

2.Folklore and mythological sources of the system of images of the novel by Thomas Malory "The Death of Arthur
In 1965, Ch. Moorman will give a critical reflection on the activities of this group of scientists in the prologue to his "Book of King Arthur", in which he views Malory's novel as a work of integrity and united in character and structure. Distinguishing, following R.M. Lumyansky, "critical unity"/, which means the unity of the work, which has developed regardless of the intention of the writer, "historical unity"/, i.e. critical unity "" consciously given by the writer to the work
C. Moorman identified three points of view on the novel by Thomas Malory, the first of them belonged to E. Vinaver "who did not distinguish between" critical "and" historical "in the novel "The Death of Arthur"
unity. The second possible view, namely that Malory's novel has only a "critical" unity, was shared by
scientists such as R. Wilson, H. Newsted, R. Ackerman and D. Brewer. Proponents of the third point of view, among whom were R.M. Lumyansky, T. Rumble and Ch. Moorman himself, defended both the "critical" and "historical unity of Malory's novel "The Death of Arthur", however, a small nuance in the approach to studying the novel did not prevent philologists, who considered Malory's novel as a single work, to unite and direct their activities along a common channel.
The result of the joint activity of this group was an interesting collective work published in 1964, edited by R.M. Lumyansky, called "Malory's Originality" ("Malory's Originality", Baltimore, 1964)
The interest of this joint study is determined primarily by the formulation of its problem, in the center of which is the solution of the question of the unity of the work of Thomas Malory, and the method of solving this problem. “As this book reveals,” R.M. Lumyansky writes in the introduction, “the authors of this study are convinced that Malory wrote one single book (“single unified book”), and not eight separate “stories” (“Tales”) Scholars call this book the same as Caxton - "The Death of Arthur"
The study consists of eight chapters, the titles of which repeat the titles of the eight "novels" in E. Vinaver's edition, but the chapters also have subtitles that express a completely new attitude of the literary critics of this group to the work they study. "... the primary task of each of the subsequent chapters is to show the function of this "Story" as part of the whole," writes R.M. Lumyansky, "...a primary purpose in each of the chapters which
follow is to show the function of the given "Tale" "ea part of 'Le Morte Darthur' as a whole"⁹
"This study of "The Death of Arthur," continues R.M. Lumyansky, "as it seems to us, makes indisputably obvious its general unity in the theme, structure and characterization" ("this examination of 'Le Morte Darthur, we feel, ma k e s indispably apparent its general unity in theme , structure and characterization." ¹⁰.
To carry out this kind of research, extremely detailed and scrupulous, a special method was also required. It was partially used by P. Wilson back in the 40s, but now, due to the acuteness of the problem and the need for its convincing solution, this method was of particular importance, it was necessary to carefully study all the new artistic material that appeared in Malory's novel. Therefore, the leading research method was a detailed comparison and comparison of individual parts of the novel with their possible sources and, on this basis, elucidating those often minute changes, reductions and additions that the writer makes to his work. It is very important that in connection with this, scientists stand on completely different positions in understanding Malory as a writer, in understanding his work.
" ...Malory was consciously aware of his handling of the source . He controlled his source, it did not control him, for he could have handle it in infinite number of ways had desired." ¹¹/ And although this provision is interpreted by the authors only as an "assumption", this assumption is "fundamental. It means a completely new approach to the study of Malory's work, sharply opposed to E. Vinaver with his understanding of Malory as a "medieval writer". Scientists of the group R.M. Lumyansky is seen in Malory as a modern writer, or rather, a writer in the modern sense of the word. For them, he is a person who consciously relates to his work, consciously working on the text, so any smallest change has a deep inner meaning for them, as a reflection of the writer's new artistic positions. Therefore, Malory's work, and not his sources, are the focus of attention of researchers.
However, this concept, which is generally so attractive, is not without a number of shortcomings. Chief among them is the ahistorical nature of the study. Very interesting and very important work was carried out, in essence, for the sake of solving an important issue - proving Malory's originality, independence. But what dictated the new features of his work? Why was it in Malory that the traditional theme of French and English chivalric romances was able to find a new birth? Literary critics of the group of R.M. Lumyansky, despite the importance of the issue they raised, remained only supporters of formal textual analysis. Analyzing the text, they could not break out of it. shells; they failed to understand the qualitatively new sound of the novel, which arose on the basis of those small detailed changes that were at the center of THEIR attention; they didn't catch the main thing is the new ideological content of the novel, which
makes it a truly standalone and truly original creation by Mallory. Malory's notions of originality and originality remained largely abstract concepts for them.
In recent years, another method of critical approach to Malory's novel has emerged. The American "new criticism" became interested in him. It is from the standpoint of this school that the American literary critic, professor at the University of Pennsylvania Edmund Reiss approaches the analysis of The Death of Arthur . In his long, thorough book, "Sir Thomas Malory" (" S ir Thomas Malory" New York, 1966). The research of this scientist is based primarily on one of the fundamental principles of the new criticism - the theory of "impersonal creativity" How easy it is to apply this principle in this case! - after all, Malory's personality turns out to be hidden from us behind the barrier of centuries, and the known / or supposed / facts of his "stormy career" seem to literary critics so incompatible with the personality of the artist, as he appears on the pages of his novel, as he emerges in the general sound of his - ideological and morally 1 / that from research to research there was more and more a tendency to consider the novel "The Death of Arthur" in isolation from the personality of its creator, to analyze it as a work that speaks for itself. It is the task of such a study that E. Reiss formulates in the preface to his book:
"In the present work I have tried ... to provide a commentary on Malory's work that is primarily concerned with how it functions as a work of literary art. I could have proceeded by analyzing according to subject; for example, one chapter on Malory 's idea of chivalry, another on his concept of love, and so forth. Such a method is valuable, and many recent studies have approached the "Morte Arthur" in this way. Instead I have preferred to discuss the work as it stands and to show Malory's concepts as they arise and function in his developing narrative." ¹²/
Of the five parts that make up this book, we will focus only on the first of them, the introductory one, entitled "The Man and the Work", which is fundamental, in this chapter Edmund Reiss formulates his concept of the novel and his method of studying it. Just like other literary scholars named in this review, he pays great attention to the form of the work.It is interesting that, recognizing the fact of its existence (as follows from the Winchester manuscript) in the form of separate stories / tales /, each of which has "its own beginning, middle and end ("each with a beginning, a middle, and an end of its own)" E. Reiss does not at all consider that this says it all about the form, citing D. Brewer's opinion that the form of "The Death of Arthur" is peculiar, that it can be called neither a collection of individual short novels /romances/, nor a novel in the modern sense of the word /novel/, that this form has something in common with both, as well as with old cyclical novels, E. Reiss goes to Further, he calls Malory's novel An Arthur-saga, an Arthur-cycle in which the parts and the whole play an equally important role. In this position and in the analysis of the novel, E. Reiss merges in his concept with the mythological school of American literary criticism, according to the theory of which myth, fairy tale, legend are proclaimed types of artistic thinking. Charles Moorman in his work "The Arthurian Triptych" defines the content of the myth, the legend of a fairy tale from the point of view of the supporters of the mythological school, we will be interested in the definition of myth and legend in it, since it is from these positions that the novel by Malory and C. Moorman, and E .Reiss with his idea of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur as a saga.
"Myth is a primitive philosophy, the simplest presentational ... form of thought, a series of attempts to understand the world, to explain life and death, fate and nature, gods and cults. Legend is primitive history, naively formulated in terms of love and hate, unconsciously transformed and simplified."¹³
Ch. Moorman's interpretation of the novel "The Death of Arthur" either as a legend or as a myth grows out of this position, he writes:
"The story may be classified either as legend or as a myth on the poimt of view of observer. On one level the story can be considered as legend; its major purpose is the mere historical description of the rise and fall of kingdom. On another level, however, the story may be legitimately considered as myth; its major purpose is not historical description, but metaphisical speculation on the meaning of history, its character relationships indicative not merely of the temporal clash of purely human emotions, but of human conflicts as they exist in relation to the whole universe in which they function."¹⁴
The concept of E. Reiss is based on the understanding of the novel as a legend, i.e. as a narrative containing a historical understanding of events (the emergence, growth, flourishing and fall of the state of King Arthur), while the ideological content of the novel, which is fundamentally different from other novels of the Arthurian cycle, is considered not in connection with the internal features of English history and culture, although E. Reiss and recognizes this as possible, and on a more abstract, more philosophical plane - the problem of human life in general, the fate of man and society in general, etc.
"Although it is possible to note in the 'Morte Arthur ' references to contemporary times, it is more pertinent to see how Malory1a work acts as a commentary on the problems and of human life difficulties and on the fortunes of man and society in this world , problems and difficulties that, although expressed in the terms of his particular age, go beyond that age." ¹⁵/
The entire structure of the work, which is, in fact, a structural analysis of the novel, serves to develop this idea. But this analysis is not devoid of contradictions, the author, following the opinion of D. Brewer, expressed by him back in 1952, that the principle of literary criticism / literary criticism / is applicable to the work of Malory more than to any other work of literature. in contrast to the principle of literary scholarship, /as different from literary scholarship/ and that in this case the work should be considered in itself, regardless of author and sources, and stating that it would be unfair to consider the novel /"lt is possible for our reading of an author to become what we may call "source-ridden", so that we no longer see his book as it is in itself, but only as it contrasts with its sources. This is clearly an injustice to the author, for we are preserving in their original form elements which he is transmuted, and even element which he rejected." ¹⁶forced at the same time to recognize the connection of Malory's novel not only with the French novels that directly influenced its creation, but also with the tradition of the Arthurian cycle of novels as a whole. Malory's composition is something that is the result of many artists' hands/, he writes. , but even from its writer, while acknowledging, nevertheless, the fact that it "passed through" Mallory:
"It must be remembered that, just as the work stands apart from its author, though it passed through Malory in order to be what it is, so does it exist apart from all other works in the Arthurian tradition that may have exerted both direct and indirect influences on Malory.'¹⁷
This isolation of the novel both from the cultural phenomena of the era that gave birth to it, and from the cultural achievements of previous centuries, among which is one of the remarkable traditions in European literature of the Middle Ages - the tradition of courtly, knightly literature, impoverishes the study, closes it within the framework of textual analysis.
It seems that the true sound of the novel by Thomas Malory and the place it occupies in English literature can only be clarified by studying a whole complex of phenomena: the traditions of courtly literature, the peculiarities of the literary process in England in the 15th century, and the cultural situation of this period. The very study of the novel "The Death of Arthur" should also be more in-depth. Speaking about Malory's position as a writer who consciously selects material for his work and consciously interprets it, one cannot fail to mention his creative method, which manifested itself primarily in the creation of an artistic image. Thus, we believe that Malory's novel cannot be regarded as a "set of speech devices", that is, to speak of an "isolated work", since Malory's novel is connected with other phenomena of English culture of the 15th century - a very complex and contradictory in nature time of development artistic thought in England; the time when new trends arose and openly declared themselves in the work of the greatest writers of that time; a time when these new trends existed side by side with traditional artistic principles, but, penetrating into traditional forms, modified and complicated them. The time of formation and development of these new tendencies in English literature can be called the English Pre-Renaissance. In the context of the clash of the old and the new, the traditional and the innovative, Thomas Malory's novel "The Death of Arthur" appears, bearing the imprint of a stormy and controversial era. An attempt at such an analysis of Malory's novel will be undertaken in this paper.
The purpose of the work is to identify the main elements and author's principles in creating the system of images of Thomas Malory's novel "The Death of Arthur".
The tasks of the work are to determine the folklore, mythological and literary sources of the novel, which determine both individual storylines and the main images of the novel. Show the close relationship of Malory's novel with the courtly tradition in the context of the changing historical and cultural content of his contemporary era.
Of great importance for us in the light of the goal and objectives of this work were the developments of this problem, presented in the works of foreign and domestic researchers of the work of Thomas Malory, such as A. Morton, E. Vinaver., Mikhailova, Zhirmundsky.