The Cambridge Companion to the Arthurian Legend

by Edited by Elizabeth Archibald , Ad Putter

• ISBN13: 9780521677882
• ISBN10: 0521677882
• Format: Paperback
• 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

Acknowledgements	p. vii
Notes on Contributors	p. ix
Frequently Cited Sources and Abbreviations	p. xii
A Selective Chronology	p. xv
Map of Arthurian Britain	p. xix
Introduction	p. 1
Evolution	p. 19
The early Arthur: history and myth	p. 21
The twelfth-century Arthur	p. 36
The thirteenth-century Arthur	p. 53
The fourteenth-century Arthur	p. 69
The fifteenth-century Arthur	p. 84
The Arthur of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries	p. 103
The Arthur of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries	p. 120
Themes	p. 137
Questioning Arthurian ideals	p. 139
Arthurian ethics	p. 154
Imperial Arthur: home and away	p. 171
Love and adultery: Arthur's affairs	p. 188
Religion and magic	p. 201
Arthurian geography	p. 218
Further Reading	p. 235
Index	p. 253
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