Moral Luck and Malory’s Morte Darthur

Abstract

Malory’s Morte Darthur, at least in its most romantic aspect, makes fortune nothing less than a measure of heroic masculinity in the form of a dventure-seeking knights undertaking brave forays into the unknown. Here the manly man is a knight errant, and errantry constitutes knighthood as a special form of agonistic struggle—albeit no sooner than a series of chance events destroys the homosocial fellowship of the Round Table. Of course, difficulty and misery is the lot of the warrior class, and one need look no further than Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy for a justification of this way of life. A comparison between the man-at-arms and the wise man enlarges the ethical scope of that life:

A wise man ought not to regret his struggles with fortune any more than a brave soldier should be intimidated by the noise of battle; for difficulty is the natural lot of each. For the soldier it is a source of increasing glory; for the wise man it is the means of confirming his wisdom. Indeed, virtue gets its name from the virile strength which is not overcome by adversity.³

No life is ever free from the possibility of unanticipated irony, because it has not been plotted in advance. Gary Saul Morson, Narrative and Freedom: The Shadows of Time¹ … for oftyntymys we do many thynges that we wene for the beste be, and yet peradventure hit turnyth to the warste. Sir Thomas Malory, Morte Darthur²