Write a short note on Thomas Malory.
Sir Thomas Malory (1405-1471) was an English writer, the author or compiler of Le Morte d’Arthur. Most modern scholarship assumes that he was Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire. He was born in 1405. He died in March of 1471, less than two years after completing his lengthy book. Malory was actually not the author, but compiler. Perhaps he was a prisoner at the time of his writing. He was repeatedly imprisoned between 1451 and 1460. Between 1450 and 1451 he was charged with several major crimes-robbery, stealing, torture, rape, and killing. He was jailed but escaped by swimming. Twice elected to a seat in Parliament, he also built up a long list of criminal charges during the 1450s, including robbery, rape, sheep stealing, and attempting to trap the Duke of Buckingham. He escaped from jail on two occasions, once by fighting his way out with a variety of weapons and by swimming a moat. Malory was imprisoned at several locations in London, but he was occasionally out on bail. He was never brought to trial for the charges that had been leveled against him. In the 1460s he was at least once pardoned by King Henry VI, but more often, he was specifically excluded from pardon by both Henry VI and his rival and successor, Edward IV. It can be construed from comments Malory makes at the ends of sections of his narrative that he composed at least part of his work while in prison. Morte D’ Arthur is his famous creation. It was the first major of prose fiction in English literature and remains today one of the greatest. His prose style is simple.
