Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book investigates the multifaceted ways in which disability and its causes and cures affect the Morte's physical and social bodies, turning first to the ways in which women influence the ability/disability system of knighthood. It argues that women are central to the masculine, able-bodied project of Malorian knighthood by analyzing the text's use of the literary motif of the lovesick knight. The book analyzes the function of lovesickness to the knightliness of Pelleas, Gareth, and Alexander the Orphan, finding that feminine enchantment, disability, and masculine knightly identity operate interdependently throughout the Morte. It discusses the text's linking of nonnormative sexuality and disability by closely reading the repeated motif of the thigh wound in the cases of Gareth, Percival, and Lancelot, using Robert McRuer's notion of the "queer/crip.".