The Medieval Reading Group will meet on Wednesday, 18 Nov at 5:15PM in GR03, Faculty of English to hear Rosalind Lintott’s paper ‘T. H. White: The Great Medievalist Who Never Was’. All are welcome to join us for an interesting discussion followed by wine and snacks!

T.H. White’s /The Once and Future King/ is one of the most popular children’s book series of the last century. It also marks a significant moment in modern readings of Thomas Malory’s /Le Morte Darthur/, a work that the polymath White deemed both ‘a perfect Aristotelian tragedy’ and ‘an antidote for War’. This paper will explore White’s engagement with Malory’s and other medieval authors’ works and his influence upon popular culture representations of the Middle Ages in the latter half of the twentieth century. It will also discuss his academic aspirations, manifested particularly in his /The Book of Beasts/, a translation and commentary of a Bestiary in Cambridge, University Library MS Ii.4.26, and the impact of medieval natural philosophy on his wartime writings.