Parody in Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, Performance and Fictionality

This essay argues, somewhat contrary to critical consensus, that Malory does use parody of a special kind and to a particular effect: while responding to the self-reflexivity of his French narrative sources, he turns the critical potential of parody to a larger interrogation of fiction itself. Malory’s surreptitious parodic gestures defamiliarize conventional forms and scripts of interaction, and point at the violent crisis of communication inherent in the parodic space.