The Cambridge Companion to the Arthurian Legend

by Edited by Elizabeth Archibald , Ad Putter

• ISBN13: 9780521860598
• ISBN10: 0521860598
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-10-12
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

For more than a thousand years, the adventures of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table have been retold across Europe. They have inspired some of the most important works of European literature, particularly in the medieval period: the romances of Chrètien de Troyes, Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. In the nineteenth century, interest in the Arthurian legend revived with Tennyson, Wagner and Twain. This Companion outlines the evolution of the legend from the earliest documentary sources to Spamalot, and analyses how some of the major motifs of the legend have been passed down in both medieval and modern texts. With a map of Arthur's Britain, a chronology of key texts and a guide to further reading, this volume itself will contribute to the continuing fascination with the King and his many legends.

Table of Contents

Chronology

Introduction

Evolution

The early Arthur: history and myth

The twelfth-century

The thirteenth-century

The fourteenth-century

The fifteenth-century

The Arthur of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries

The Arthur of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries

Themes

Questioning Arthurian ideals

Arthurian ethics

Imperial Arthur: home and away

Love and adultery: Arthur's affairs

Religion and magic

Arthurian geography

Further reading

Index

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