Arthurian Literature And Society

This Companion offers a chronological sweep of the canon of Arthurian literature - from its earliest beginnings to the contemporary manifestations of Arthur found in film and electronic media. Part of the popular series, Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture, this expansive volume enables a fundamental understanding of Arthurian literature and explores why it is still integral to contemporary culture. Offers a comprehensive survey from the earliest to the most recent works Features an impressive range of well-known international contributors Examines contemporary additions to the Arthurian canon, including film and computer games Underscores an understanding of Arthurian literature as fundamental to western literary tradition

This first comprehensive treatment of Arthurian literature in the English language up until the end of the Middle Ages is now available for the first time in paperback. English people think of Arthur as their own – stamped on the landscape in scores of place-names, echoed in the names of princes even today. Yet some would say the English were the historical Arthur’s bitterest enemies and usurpers of his heritage. The process by which Arthurian legends have become an important part of England’s cultural heritage is traced in this book. Previous studies have concentrated on the handful of chivalric romances, which have given the impression that Arthur is a hero of romantic escapism. This study seeks to provide a more comprehensive and insightful look at the English Arthurian legends and how they evolved. It focuses primarily upon the literary aspects of Arthurian legend, but it also makes some important political and social observations.

The renowned and illustrious tales of King Arthur, his knights and the Round Table pervade all European vernaculars, as well as the Latin tradition. Arthurian narrative material, which had originally been transmitted in oral culture, began to be inscribed regularly in the twelfth century, developing from (pseudo-)historical beginnings in the Latin chronicles of "historians" such as Geoffrey of Monmouth into masterful literary works like the romances of Chrétien de Troyes. Evidently a big hit, Arthur found himself being swiftly translated, adapted and integrated into the literary traditions of almost every European vernacular during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This Handbook seeks to showcase the European character of Arthurian romance both past and present. By working across national philological boundaries, which in the past have tended to segregate the study of Arthurian romance according to language, as well as by exploring primary texts from different vernaculars and the Latin tradition in conjunction with recent theoretical concepts and approaches, this Handbook brings together a pioneering and more complete view of the specifically European context of Arthurian romance, and promotes the more connected study of Arthurian literature across the entirety of its European context.

These essays on Arthurian prose romances, published as a tribute to Cedric E. Pickford, reflect their development and the reshaping of the romances in response to changing taste and fashion from the death of Chrétien de Troyes to the end of the medieval period in England. Topics include the question of religious influences; the transition of Arthurian material to foreign contexts; and the fortunes of the prose romance in England, focusing on the Prose 'Merlin' and Malory. The contributors are: ELSPETH KENNEDY, RENÉE L. CURTIS, FANNI BOGDANOW, JANE H.M. TAYLOR, DAVID BLAMIRES, CERIDWEN LLOYD-MORGAN, CAROL M. MEALE, KAREN STERN, DEREK BREWER, FAITH LYONS, ROGER MIDDLETON

Arthurian Literature has established its position as the home for a great diversity of new research into Arthurian matters. Delivers some fascinating material across genres, periods, and theoretical issues. TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT The influence and significance of the legend of Arthur are fully demonstrated by the subject matter and time-span of articles here. Topics range from early Celtic sources and analogues of Arthurian plots to popular interest in King Arthur in sixteenth-century London, from the thirteenth-century French prose Mort Artu to Tennyson's Idylls of the King. It includes discussion of shapeshifters and loathly ladies, attitudes to treason, royal deaths and funerals in the fifteenth century and the nineteenth, late medieval Scottish politics and early modern chivalry. Elizabeth Archibald is Professor of English, University of Durhaml; Professor David F. Johnson teaches in the English Department, Florida State University, Tallahassee. Contributors: Aisling Byrne, Emma Campbell, P.J.C. Field, Kenneth Hodges, Megan Leitch, Andrew Lynch, Sue Niebrzydowski, Karen Robinson.

Arthurian Literature has established its position as the home for a great diversity of new research into Arthurian matters. It delivers fascinating material across genres, periods, and theoretical issues. TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT