The tone of the book is often nostalgic and sentimental, but it is also tongue-in-check. Malory really seems to believe that everything was more glorious in Arthur's day. For example, in Volume 2, Book 18, Chapter 25, the narrator contrasts 15th-century love with Arthurian love:
Right so fareth love nowadays, soon hot soon cold: this is no stability. But the old love was not so[...]
The narrator seems to find the "old love" to be far more impressive than "love nowadays." This includes not only romantic love, but also the love men have for one another and for their principles. Drama and emotions both run high as the narrator describes the quest for the Sangreal, Launcelot's impossible devotion to both Guenever and Arthur, Tristram's rivalry with Palomides, and more. There is a sense that the world used to be a more intense place, full of romance, magic, and adventure that are not as available in the mundane world from which Malory is writing.
But Malory's admiration for Arthur's days is not wholly uncomplicated. The reverent nostalgia can also be a cover for a tongue-in-cheek, satirical tone. For example, in Volume 2, Book 18, Chapter 21, the narrator describes an unfortunate incident in which a woman accidentally shoots an arrow into Launcelot's buttock:
[...] [S]he put a broad arrow in her bow, and shot at the hind, and over-shot the hind; and so by misfortune the arrow smote Sir Launcelot in the thick of the buttock, over the barbs. When Sir Launcelot felt himself so hurt, he hurled up woodly, and saw the lady that had smitten him. And when he saw she was a woman, he said thus: ‘Lady or damosel, what that thou be, in an evil time bear ye a bow; the devil made you a shooter.’
Because the tone is no different on the surface from the rest of the book's tone, it is easy to miss how comedic this passage is. Meaning to shoot a "hind" or deer, the huntress accidentally shoot's Launcelot's "hind," or rear end. Launcelot has recently had a comeback after his long absence from Arthur's court, which was the lowest point of his pining after Guenever. Just when he seems to be back to his old, heroic self, Mallory makes him the literal butt of this joke. Suddenly, Mallory has shifted from a heroic tone to a mock heroic tone: that is, the passage still has the outward appearance of being about Launcelot's heroic deeds, but it is really making him look like a laughable fool. Malory's ability to subtly shift his tone like this allows him to present an ambivalent picture of Arthurian chivalry. He is nostalgic for it, but Arthur and his knights are not immune to criticism, either.
