Legends and Heroes

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Legends and Heroes

• What is your definition of a legend? What
  examples can you give of a legend?
• What is your definition of a hero? Is a hero a
  real person or a fictional person? What are the
  traits and qualities of a hero (think hero, not
  tragic hero).

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Arthurian Legend
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Legend (literary definition)

• Story based in history
• Set in a particular time and place
• Focused on people who might have existed
• Contain exaggerated, magical, or supernatural
  elements

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Arthurian Legend

• Some suggest King Arthur would have lived around
  the 5th-6th centuries
• Stories were verbally transmitted
• 1st datable reference to King Arthur is in the
  9th century

5
Arthurian Authors

• MANY authors wrote about Arthur
• Sir Thomas Malory
• Le Morte dArthur - 1470s
• Alfred Lord Tennyson
• Idylls of the King - 1842

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Chivalry

• Code of manner, honor, and courtly love
• Duties to countrymen, God, and women

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Duties to Countrymen Fellow Christians

• Virtues such as mercy, courage, valor, fairness
• Protection of the weak and the poor
• Servant-hood of the knight to his lord
• Willing to give ones life for anothers

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Duties to God

• Being faithful to God
• Being faithful to the church
• Protecting the innocent
• Being the champion of good against evil
• Obeying God above the feudal lord

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Duties to Women

• Courtly love the idea that the knight is to
  serve a lady, and after her all other ladies
• General gentleness and graciousness to all women