Do not miss your chance to hear David Wallace (whose voice could render a public reading of my Google Calendar an aesthetic experience) speaking about Thomas Malory. The link is good only until September 3, so dither not: go here. Eugene Vinaver is a hero of this tale, so it was surprising to hear him described as "small but insistent" with a "willful thumb" ... actually, there is wonderful historical background on Vinaver, as well as on all the circumstances of the discovery, survival, and context of the Winchester MS of Malory's Morte. Malory, Caxton, and the scholars (literary critics, historians, archaeologists) who have studied them receive ample analysis.David Wallace, I should add, is exemplary in participating in such public forums, making what we do as medievalists comprehensible ... and even exciting.
(h/t Jonathan Hsy and Stephanie Trigg)
Thanks for the link on this. I found it very interesting when towards the end Wallace discusses how T.E. Lawrence (i.e. "Lawrence of Arabia") was intensely interested in editing the Winchester manuscript, and how Lawrence went to fight in the Middle East during WWI around this time because that was the last place where he perceived that one could still fight somewhat in the style of Malory and of Arthurian knights (someone, perhaps it was Wallace, points out that the last known large-scale cavalry charge takes place around this time). I'm looking forward to the next installment of this BBC program on John Stuart Mill. I hope they touch on his importance for modern day animal liberationists such as Peter Singer.
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