The Arthur Of The Germans

From the twelfth century onwards the legends of King Arthur and his knights, including the Tristan legend, spread across Europe, producing a vast range of adaptations and new stories. German and Dutch literature were of central importance in this expansion of Arthurian material from the 12th to 16th century. This title deals with this topic.

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 compelling story of Arthur Greiser, territorial leader of the Warthegau and the man who initiated the Final Solution in Nazi-occupied Poland.

In the medieval Low Countries (modern-day Belgium and the Netherlands), Arthurian romance flourished in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Middle Dutch poets translated French material (like Chrétien’s Conte du Graal and the Prose Lancelot), but also created romances of their own, like Walewein. This book provides a current overview of the Dutch Arthurian material and the research that it has provoked. Geographically, the region is a crossroads between the French and Germanic spheres of influence, and the movement of texts and manuscripts (west to east) reflects its position, as revealed by chapters on the historical context, the French material and the Germanic Arthuriana of the Rhinelands. Three chapters on the translations of French verse texts, the translations of French prose texts, and on the indigenous romances form the core of the book, augmented by chapters on the manuscripts, on Arthur in the chronicles, and on the post-medieval Arthurian material..

An interpretation of the «classical» works of the Arthurian genre in medieval Germany with special reference to the reception accorded those works by near-contemporaries of Hartmann and Wolfram.

This is the first comprehensive authoritative survey of Arthurian literature and traditions in the Celtic languages of Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Irish and Scottish Gaelic. With contributions by leading and emerging specialists in the field, the volume traces the development of the legends that grew up around Arthur and have been constantly reworked and adapted from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. It shows how the figure of Arthur evolved from the leader of a warband in early medieval north Britain to a king whose court becomes the starting-point for knightly adventures, and how characters and tales are reimagined, reshaped and reinterpreted according to local circumstances, traditions and preoccupations at different periods. From the celebrated early Welsh poetry and prose tales to less familiar modern Breton and Cornish fiction, from medieval Irish adaptations of the legend to the Gaelic ballads of Scotland, Arthur in the Celtic Languages provides an indispensable, up-to-date guide of a vast and complex body of Arthurian material, and to recent research and criticism.