K.S. Whetter’s second monograph was published last week by D. S. Brewer, an imprint of the UK’s Boydell & Brewer Ltd, the leading (and refereed) press for scholarly Arthurian studies: K. S. Whetter, Manuscript and Meaning in Malory’s Le Morte Darthur: Rubrication, Commemoration, Memorialization (Cambridge, UK: D. S. Brewer, 2017).

In this book Whetter examines the origin and purpose of the red-ink names that decorate the manuscript of Malory’s Morte Darthur. These red names are visually striking, but Whetter establishes that the detailed and consistent use of red names is unique to this manuscript. He then explores the thematic significance of that use of red for a reading of Malory’s Morte Darthur. There is, in other words, a careful correlation between manuscript design and material culture on the one hand, and narrative story and theme on the other.  Ultimately, Whetter illustrates how manuscript mise-en-page underscores Malory’s interest in human character and knighthood, creating a memorializing function similar to the many inscribed tombs that dominate the landscape of the Morte’s narrative pages and late-mediaeval England.

For further details visit the press website: https://boydellandbrewer.com/the-manuscript-and-meaning-of-malory-s-i-morte-darthur-i-hb.html