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The revival of interest in Arthurian legend in the 19th century was a remarkable phenomenon, apparently at odds with the spirit of the age. Tennyson was widely criticised for his choice of a medieval topic; yet The Idylls of the Kingwere accepted as the national epic, and a flood of lesser works was inspired by them, on both sides of the Atlantic. Elisabeth Brewer and Beverly Taylor survey the course of Arthurian literature from 1800 to the present day, and give an account of all the major English and American contributions. Some of the works are well-known, but there are also a host of names which will be new to most readers, and some surprises, such as J. Comyns Carr's King Arthur, rightly ignored as a text, but a piece oftheatrical history, for Sir Henry Irving played King Arthur, Ellen Terry was Guinevere, Arthur Sullivan wrote the music, and Burne-Jones designed the sets. The Arthurian works of the Pre-Raphaelites are discussed at length, as are the poemsof Edward Arlington Robinson, John Masefield and Charles Williams. Other writers have used the legends as part of a wider cultural consciousness: The Waste Land, David Jones's In Parenthesis and The Anathemata, and the echoes ofTristan and Iseult in Finnigan's Wake are discussed in this context. Novels on Arthurian themes are given their due place, from the satirical scenes of Thomas Love Peacock's The Misfortunes of Elphin and Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court to T.H. White's serio-comic The Once and Future King and the many recent novelists who have turned away from the chivalric Arthur to depict him as a Dark Age ruler. The Return of King Arthurincludes a bibliography of British and American creative writing relating to the Arthurian legends from 1800 to the present day. ... Read more

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A Lecture Series on Three Audiocassettes. ... Read more

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With one exception, the articles in this book are revised and expanded papers from the "Word and Image" sessions at the XVIIth International Congress of the Arthurian Society, held in Bonn, Germany, 23-30 July, 1993.Together, they represent a number of directions Arthurian studies is presently taking. There is renewed attention to the Old French Lancelot-Graal cycle and the prose Tristan(Blackman, Dover, Thibault Schaefer, Stones, Walters), analysis of the survival of medieval themes in post-medieval forms of Arthuriana (Hoffman), and the enduring interest in the romances of Chr tien de Troyes (Carroll, Vauthier). There is a penetrating analysis of the visual representations of the Tristan story, with particular reference to German material (Van D'Elden; see also Thibault Schaefer), and the first treatment of Arthurian illustrations of Middle Dutch (Meuwese). Also included is an article on Spenser (Mazzola) that illustrates another form of the relationship between word and image.
Common to all of the articles is a close attention to the historical contexts in which the works and manuscripts in questions were produced. This collection is a real contribution to the study of manuscripts and other objects as cultural artifacts, and not merely as texts. As such, it helps us towards a fuller appreciation of what they may have meant to those who possessed them and the manner in which they were received both synchronically and diachronically in the Middle Ages and beyond. ... Read more

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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

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This book, which brings together the work of leading international scholars, is the first comprehensive treatment of Arthurian literature in the English language to the end of the Middle Ages and traces the process by which the Arthurian legends were assimilated to become an important part of the English cultural heritage. ... Read more

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The Holy Grail is central to the Arthurian literature.The lighthearted journeys for women and adventure build up to the journeys of the soul.It becomes clear that these earlier journeys were also not really what they seemed to be, not really journeys on horseback and clothed in armor, but journeys of the spirit.Contents: The Holy Vessel and its Literature; Holy Grail in its Manifestation and Removal; The Conte Del Graal; Cycle of Robert De Borron; Vulgate Cycle of the Holy Grail; Other and Later Texts of the Grail Legend; German Cycle of the Holy Grail; Welsh and English Texts; Critical Aparatus in Respect of the Grail Cycles: Celtic Hypothesis; Further Critical Apparatus: The Schools, the Churches, and the Sects; Further Critical Apparatus: The Ritual Hypothesis; Secret of the Holy Grail; Bibliography of the Holy Grail. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Before the Da Vinci Code....
Waite researches the Grail literature and expounds on its mystical and esoteric theme.Not exactly reading of the same caliber of Dan Brown's thrill paced novel but still a very important work for Grail scholars. ... Read more

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The Arthurian legends have had an immense and enduring appeal in America, influencing both America's own mythologies and its literature, film, social history, and popular culture. This is the first full-length study to focus exclusively on American re-interpretations of Arthuriana, and it offers detailed treatments of major authors traditionally associated with the legends, including Mark Twain, Edwin Arlington Robinson, T.S. Eliot, and John Steinbeck; it also explores the important use of Arthurian material by authors not usually considered in an Arthurian context, and by lesser-known writers. Among the topics addressed in the chronological survey are the beginnings of American Arthurian literature and the different reactions to Tennyson; satire and parody; the moralising of knighthood and the development of a body of didactic literature for children; and the reinterpretations of Arthurian tradition in the works of contemporary writers such as Walker Percy and John Updike. A concluding chapter analyses Arthurian themes in American popular fiction and film and demonstrates the extent to which the Arthurian tradition has influenced American popular culture. The volume is completed with a comprehensive bibliography.ALAN LUPACK is Curator of the Rossell Hope Robbins Library at the University of Rochester; BARBARA TEPA LUPACKis former Academic Dean at SUNY and Fulbright Professor of American Literature in Poland and France. ... Read more

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1930. Contents: early reference to Arthur in Italy, Merlin the prophet, the Holy Grail; Matter of Britain in the poets of the 13th century; Palamede and Rusticiano da Pisa; Tristano Riccardiano; Arthurian matter in the Novelle; Arthurian matter in the Mare Amoroso and in the Intelligenza; some Tristan and Lancelot fragments; Dante and the Arthurian legend; Tavola Ritonda; Italian romances of Merlin; Matter of Britain in the poets of the Trecento and Boccaccio; Matter of Britain in the Cantari; Arthurianism of Boiardo and Ariosto; later treatment of Arthurian matter in Italy; with an appendix of an unpublished romance of the Old Table. ... Read more

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King Arthur is perhaps the central figure of the medieval world, and the lore of Camelot has captivated literary imaginations from the Middle Ages to the present. Included in this volume are extended entries on more than 30 writers who incorporate Arthurian legend in their works. Arranged chronologically, the entries trace the pervasive influence of Arthurian lore on world literature across time. Entries are written by expert contributors and discuss such writers as Geoffrey of Monmouth, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, and Margaret Atwood. Each entry provides biographical information, a discussion of the author's use of Arthurian legend and contribution to the Arthurian literary tradition, and a bibliography of primary and secondary material. The volume begins with an introductory overview and concludes with suggestions for further reading.

The central figure of the medieval world, King Arthur has captivated literary imaginations from the Middle Ages to the present. This book includes extended entries on more than 30 writers in the Arthurian tradition. Arranged chronologically and written by expert contributors, the entries trace the pervasive influence of Arthurian legend from the Middle Ages to the present.

Each entry provides biographical information, a discussion of the writer's use of Arthurian legend and contribution to the Arthurian literary tradition, and a bibliography of primary and secondary material. The volume begins with an introductory overview and closes with a discussion of Arthurian lore in art, along with suggestions for further reading. Students will gain a better understanding of the Middle Ages and the lasting significance of the medieval world on contemporary culture.

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Eleven essays by leading Arthurians lead off with an overview of the field suggesting directions that Arthurian studies must take to remain vital. Other essays contain innovative approaches, overviews of specific areas of Arthurian studies, and suggestions for new ways to approach Arthurian material; they range over Malory, Latin Arthurian literature, Gawain and the Green Knight, Merlin in the twenty-first century, Tennyson's Idylls, Arthur in African-American culture, current trends in criticism, Arthurian fiction, and Arthurian film. Contributors include: ROBERT BLANCH, DEREK BREWER, P.J.C. FIELD, SIAN ECHARD, PETER GOODRICH, KEVIN HARTY, NORRIS J. LACY, BARBARA TEPA LUPACK, DAVID STAINES, RAYMOND THOMPSON, JULIAN WASSERMAN, BONNIE WHEELER. ... Read more

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This witty and accessible book traces the history of Arthurian romance from medieval to modern times, explaining its enduring appeal.

• Traces the history of Arthurian romance from medieval to modern times.
  
• Covers art and films as well as the great literary works of Arthurian romance.
  
• Draws out the changing political, moral and emotional uses of the story.
  
• Explains the enduring appeal of the Arthurian legend.
  
• Written by an author with vast knowledge of medieval literature.

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In her systematic reassessment of the remaking of the Arthurian past in nineteenth-century British fiction and non-fiction, Inga Bryden examines the Victorian Arthurian revival as a cultural phenomenon, offering insights into the relationship between social, cultural, religious, and ethnographic debates of the period and a wide range of texts. Throughout, she adopts an intertextual and historical perspective, informed by poststructuralist thinking, to reveal nineteenth-century attitudes towards the past. Starting with a review of the historical evidence available to Victorian writers and an examination of how historians of the time represented Arthur, the author connects Victorian accounts of Arthur's quest to contemporary scientific and historical searches for origins and knowledge, and to his appropriation by competing religious movements. She shows how writers explored the dynamics of heroism by recruiting Arthur and his knights to define codes of chivalric service, and to personify the psychological complexities of love.Finally, the legend of his death and transportation to Avalon is deconstructed and placed in the context of cultural attitudes towards commemorating the dead and theological debates about the afterlife. Inga Bryden engages not only with well-known Arthurian texts by Tennyson, Swinburne, Morris and Rosetti, but with lesser-known works by Bulwer-Lytton, Robert Stephen Hawker, Sebastian Evans, Diana Maria Mulock, Christiana Douglas and Joseph Shorthouse. ... Read more

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Some time in the first quarter of the thirteenth century, Guillaume le clers composed the story of Fergus, the homo silvaticus who develops into a formidable knight; he was playing a literary game with Chrétien de Troyes, especially with his Conte du Graal, and he created a romance in which the main character features as a `new' Perceval in a realistically depicted Scottish landscape. Shortly thereafter, perhaps as early as 1250, the story was translated into Middle Dutch. The Ferguut, however, is an adaptation of the Old French Fergus, rather than a slavish translation: although the translator followed his Old French original fairly faithfully for the first part, thereafter the poet - and most likely a second author - continued his work from memory, and clearly without the Old French version to hand. The result is a romance which possesses all the appeal of the Old French Fergus, but at the same time reveals something of the Middle Dutch romancer's tastes and techniques.This volume offers the first ever English translation, facing a new edition of the text, and will thus bring this important work to a wider audience; it is accompanied by an introduction, variants and rejected readings, and critical notes. ... Read more

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This book takes a unique look at the Latin Arthurian tradition, placing authors such as Geoffrey of Monmouth in the context of Latin histories, monastic chronicles, saints' lives, and other Latin prose Arthurian narratives. Placing them against a background of the Angevin court of Henry II, the book introduces a new set of texts into the Arthurian canon and suggests a way to understand their place in that tradition. The unfamiliar works are summarized for the reader, and there are extensive quotations, with translations, throughout. ... Read more

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For centuries, accounts of King Arthur and his court have fascinated historians, scholars, poets, and readers. Each age has added material to reflect its own cultural attitudes, but no era has supplemented the earlier versions more than the poets of the Medieval Revival of nineteenth-century England. This book examines how Arthurian legend was read and rewritten during that period by four enduring writers: Alfred Lord Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, William Morris, and Algernon Charles Swinburne. While other works have looked at Arthurian legend in light of nineteenth-century social conditions, this volume focuses on how these poets approached love and death in their works, and how the legend of Arthur shaped their vision. ... Read more

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This comprehensive account of Arthurian in British art in the 19th century offers fresh insights into the significance of the legends. Wide-ranging, both historically and thematically, it moves from Dyce's Arthurian frescoes in the Houses of Parliament in the 1840s to the use of Galahad in First World War memorial imagery. Based on substantial primary research, Poulson relates the visual treatments of the legend both to literature and music and to historical and social developments, such as the rise of nationalism, racial stereotypes, religious and scientific controversy, and debates about women's roles, rights and sexuality. The book also relates images of the dying Arthur to 19th century millennialism and scientific predictions of the death of the sun and the end of life on earth. ... Read more