| John Steinbeck devoted years to his translation of Malory's Morte d'Arthur, yet it was a project he would abandon in despair. This dissertation examines the significance of the attempt---and its failure---for Steinbeck's life and work.;Chapter One places the translation within the context of Steinbeck's corpus. I trace Malory's influence on Steinbeck as a young reader and as a novelist: from Cup of Gold, his first novel, to The Winter of Our Discontent, his last, that influence is abundantly clear, a curious counterweight to the naturalism for which he is far better known. Chapter Two uses textual analysis to examine issues of audience. Steinbeck takes pains to update Malory's world; science, that modern paradigm, imposes its rigorous discipline on magic while characters exhibit psychological complexity and development. But did Steinbeck write for Thom and John, his sons, or the Malory scholar Eugene Vinaver: was he producing an adventure story or a work of academic excellence? Problems of audience would fatally complicate the already formidable task of translation. Chapter Three centers on Steinbeck's omissions and abridgments. Just as Malory had condensed the French Vulgates for his time, so Steinbeck sought to distill the distillation. But it would not be so easy to reduce Malory to twentieth-century standards of coherence and brevity. Steinbeck could not render the Morte into a novel without writing the novel himself, Chapter Four examines his original contributions to the redaction. As the novelist supplants the translator, The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights gains vibrant life---but at the sacrifice of the fidelity to Malory which Steinbeck held so dear. Chapter Five seeks to encompass the complex reasons behind Steinbeck's abandonment of the project, this Grail quest more noble in its failure than many a realized dream. |
