The Ill-Made Knight
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| The Ill-Made Knight | |
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| Author | T. H. White |
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| Country | England |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Once and Future King |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy |
| Publisher | G. P. Putnam's Sons |
| Publication date | 1940 |
| Pages | 291 |
| ISBN | ISBN |
| Preceded by | The Queen of Air and Darkness |
| Followed by | The Candle in the Wind |
"The Ill-Made Knight" is the third book in the epic novel The Once and Future King, by T. H. White. It was first published in 1940, but is usually found today only in collected editions of all four books of the novel.
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[edit] Plot summary
Much of The Ill-Made Knight takes place in the fabled Camelot, full of blue castle tops, red banners and white castle bricks. Against this happy backdrop, White constructs a tragedy.
The Ill-Made Knight is based around the adventures, perils and mistakes of Sir Lancelot. Lancelot, despite being the bravest of the knights, is ugly, and ape-like, so that he calls himself the "Ill-Made Knight". T.H. White's version of the tale elaborates greatly on the passionate love of Lancelot and Guinevere. Suspense is provided by the tension between Lancelot's friendship to King Arthur and his love for and affair with the queen. This affair leads inevitably to the breaking of the Round Table and sets up the tragedy that is to follow in the concluding book of the tetraology - "The Candle in the Wind".
The Ill-Made Knight also deals with the quest for the Holy Grail - with about one quarter of the book centered on this and another quarter on Lancelot’s other adventures.
[edit] Allusions to/references from other works
T.H. White draws his story from Mallory's "Le Morte d'Arthur". Many details, however, are unique to White, such as Lancelot's ugliness. while different legends cite different characters as the finders of the Holy Grail, White allows all three of the most commonly-cited to find the grail:Galahad, by way of his purity; Percival, by way of his innocence; and Bors, by way of his doctrine.
[edit] Allusions/references in other works
The Lerner and Loewe musical Camelot is largely based on The Ill Made Knight and The Candle in the Wind.
[edit] Quotes
- “The boy [Lancelot] thought that there was something wrong with him. All throughout his life—even when he was a great man with the world at his feet—he was to feel this gap: something at the bottom of his heart of which he was aware, and ashamed, but which he did not understand it... We do not have to dabble in a place which he preferred to keep secret."
