Wu notes translated extract from Sir Bors' lament for Arthur (in the Morte D'Arthur of Thomas Malory) in the Wordsworth Commonplace Book.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Wordsworth Family Manuscript: Unknown
'When the seventeen-year-old seaman entered Mr Pratt's bookstore on Sixth Avenue near Greenwich Avenue, he bought his first volume of Sir Thomas Malory's Morete d'Arthur; with this he began his career of serious reading as well as his devotion to pre-Renaissance English literature'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Masefield Print: Book
Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1937) include part of Le Morte D'Arthur, XX.3, opening: ' "So upon Trinity Sunday at night King Arthur dreamed a womderful dream [...] that to him there seemed he sat upon a chaflet [platform] in a chair, and the chair was fast to a wheel "'. Underneath, Forster notes: 'Copied, with modernised spelling, just as King George VI returned from his coronation to his palace.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'Oct 4th. [1858] "To-day," my mother says [in diary], "A. took a volume of the Morte d'Arthur and read a noble passage about the battle with the Romans. He went to meet Mr and Mrs Roebuck at dinner at Swainston: and the comet was grand, with Arcturus shining brightly over the nucleus. At dinner he said he must leave the table to look at it, and they all followed [...]" When he returned next night he "observed the comet from his platform, and, when he came down for tea, read some Paradise Lost."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson Print: Book
'On Feb. 17th [1861] my father told my mother about his plan for a new poem, "The Northern Farmer."
'By the evening of Feb. 18th he had already written down a great part of "The Northern Farmer" [...] They also read of Sir Gareth in the Morte d'Arthur.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred and Emily Tennyson Print: Book
'I have nearly finished The Morte D'arthur. I am more pleased at having bought it every day,
as it has opened up a new world to me. I had no idea that the Arthurian legends were so fine
(The name is against them, isn't it??) Malory is really not a great author, but he has two
excellent gifts, (1) that of lively narrative and (2) the power of getting you to know characters
by gradual association. What I mean is, that, although he never sits down - as moderns do -
to describe a man's character, yet, by the end of the first volume Launcelot & Tristan, Balin &
Pellinore, Morgan le Fay & Isoud are all just as much real, live people as Paul Emanuel or Mme
Beck. The very names of the chapters, as they spring to meet the eye, bear with them a
fresh, sweet breath from the old-time faery world, wherein the author moves. Who can read
"How Launcelot in the Chapel Perilous gat a cloth from a Dead corpse"... and not hasten to
find out what it's all about?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
(1) 'I have been reading again the second volume of Malory, especially the part of the
"Sangreal" which I had forgotten. With all its faults, in small doses this book is tip-top: those
mystic parts are very good to read late at night when you are drowsy and tired and get into a
sort of "exalted" mood. Do you know what I mean?' (2) 'It was unfortunate that I should
choose a word like "exaltation" which is so often used in connection with religion and so give
you a wrong impression of my meaning. I will try to explain again: have you ever sat over the
fire late, late at night.... Everything seems like a dream, you are absolutely contented, and
"out of the world".... It is in this sort of mood that the quaint, old mystical parts of Malory are
exactly suitable...' (3) '...the "Morte" which I have now read from the beginning of the Quest
of the Grael to the end, thus finishing the whole thing. I certainly enjoyed it much better than
before, and wished that I had the first volume here as well.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
