Most Ancient and Famous History of the Renowned Prince Arthur, The
Birth, Life, and Acts of King Arthur_--call it by whichever name anybody
likes of those which various printers and reprinters have given it--is
one of the great books of the world. If they can give us any single
"French book"--the reference to which is a commonplace of the
subject--from which it was taken, let them; they have not yet. If they
point out (as they can) French and English books from which parts of it
were taken, similar things may be done with Dante and Chaucer, with
Shakespeare and Milton, and very probably could have been done with
Homer. It is what the artist does with his materials, not where he gets
them, that is the question. And Malory has done, with _his_ materials, a
very great thing indeed. He is working no doubt to a certain extent
blindly; working much better than he knows, and sometimes as he would
not work if he knew better; though whether he would work as well if he
knew better is quite a different point. Sometimes he may not take the
best available version of a story; but we must ask ourselves whether he
knew it. Sometimes he may put in what we do not want: but we must ask
ourselves whether there was not a reason for doing so, to him if not to
us. What is certain is that he, and he only in any language, makes of
this vast assemblage of stories one story, and one book. He does it
(much more than half unconsciously no doubt) by following the lines of,
as I suppose, Walter Map, and fusing the different motives, holding to
this method even in parts of the legend with which, so far as one knows,
Map cannot have meddled. Before him this legend consisted of half a
dozen great divisions--a word which may be used of malice prepense.
These were the story of Merlin, that of Arthur's own origin, and that of
the previous history of the Graal for introduction; the story of
Arthur's winning the throne, of the Round Table, and of the marriage
with Guinevere, also endless branchings of special knights' adventures,
and of the wars with the Saxons and the Romans, and the episode of the