SOURCE: Pachoda, Elizabeth T. “The Arthurian Legend Exposed: Le Morte Darthur, Tales V-VIII.” In Arthurian Propaganda: Le Morte Darthur as an Historical Ideal of Life, pp. 102-40. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1971.

In the following essay, Pachoda outlines Malory's use of the Arthurian myth and its accompanying traditions as structural foundations for Le Morte Darthur.

In turning to the collapse of the Arthurian ideal in Le Morte Darthur, we are forced to confront some problems related to the structure and nature of myth; such a consideration is crucial, since after all the Arthurian “myth” of social unity and cohesiveness disintegrates in these last tales. Only through some understanding of the function of myth can we see how this disintegration takes place in Malory's re-creation of the Arthurian story. The Lévi-Strauss structural approach to myth is based on the proposition that “mythical thought always progresses from...