KING ARTHUR

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KING ARTHUR

• AFTER MALORY

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LE MORTE DARTHURafter Malory

• 1634 Last printing for nearly two hundred years.
• During the end of the Middle Ages, interest in
  King Arthur started to wane.
• There were increasing attacks upon Arthurs
  historical truthfulness.
• King Arthur and the Arthurian legend were not
  entirely abandoned, but until the early 19th
  century the material was taken less seriously and
  was often used simply as a vehicle for allegories
  of 17th and 18th Century politics or presented
  farcically.
• Sir Richard Blackmores Prince Arthur, an
  Heroick Poem in X Books (1695).
• A celebration of William III.
• Henry Fieldings play Tom Thumb (1730).
• Renewed interest came about with the advent of
  Romanticism in the early 19th Century most
  notably through poetry.
• 1816 Back in print!

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FAERIE QUEENEby Edmund Spenser

• 1590-1596
• Spenser does not build off of any Arthurian
  myths. He creates an Arthur that suits the
  purposes of his own aims, but uses Arthur because
  of his (Arthurs) popularity.
• Arthur is in search of the Faerie Queene, whom he
  saw in a vision.
• Arthur is not yet king. Only a knight at this
  point.
• Spenser wrote a letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, in
  which he tells of his idea for the Faerie Queene,
  wherein he mentions Arthur and Arthurs purpose
  thereof.

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Letter to Raleigh

• I chose the historye of king Arthure, as most
  fitte for the excellency of his person being made
  famous by many mens former workes, and also
  furthest from the daunger of enuy, and suspition
  of present timeI labour to pourtraict in
  Arthure, before he was king, the image of a braue
  knight, perfected in the twelue morall vertues,
  as Aristotle hath deuised, the which is the
  purpose of these first twelue bookes which if I
  finde to be well accepted, I may be perhaps
  encoraged, to frame the other part of polliticke
  vertues in his person, after that hee came to be
  king So in the person of Prince Arthure I sette
  forth magnificence in particular, which vertue
  for that (according to Aristotle and the rest) it
  is the perfection of all the rest, and conteineth
  in it them all, therefore in the whole course I
  mention the deedes of Arthure applyable to that
  vertue, which I write of in that booke. But of
  the xii. other vertues, I make xii. other knights
  the patrones, for the more variety of the
  history.

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IDYLLS OF THE KINGBy Alfred Lord Tennyson

• 1856-1874
• Tennyson mostly builds off of Malorys Arthur and
  the Mabinogion, but expands on and adds to them.
• - Makes direct references to Malorys Morte
  And he Malory that told the tale in older
  times / Says that Sir Gareth wedded Lyonors, /
  But he, that told it later Tennyson, says
  Lynette (from the idyll Gareth and Lynette lines
  1392-1394).
• Often read as an allegory of the societal
  conflicts in Britain during the mid-Victorian
  era.

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A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHURS COURTBy
Mark Twain

• 1889
• A satire of Arthurian Legends, mostly Malorys
  Morte. Twains account is not an idealizing of a
  chivalric past (that never existed), but a
  pointing out of a past that lacks in every
  societal arena as compared to 19th Century
  America. The Medieval past is not chivalry, but
  slavery. Twains partiality to American
  democracy is obvious, as well as his belittling
  of Britains noble past the past which Arthur
  (and his legends) embodies.

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THE ONCE AND FUTURE KINGBy T.H. White

• 1938-1958
• Constituted of four parts
• 1. The Sword in the Stone 2. The Queen of Air
  and Darkness 3. The Ill-Made Knight 4. The
  Candle in the Wind.
• Thomas Malory is actually a character a squire
  of King Arthurs.
• Like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court,
  The Once and Future King is judgmental of the
  noble past.
• Arthur tries to set up a moral society, but it
  seems a futile endeavor since knights use muscle
  on the battlefield and give little thought to
  moral righteousness.
• White demonstrates the frivolousness and
  absurdity of knighthood.
• The Questing Beast.
• Arthur is not glorified as heroic because of
  military prowess, but because of his political
  innovativeness.
• Arthur is only successful at this because of
  Merlin.

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THE MISTS OF AVALONBy Marion Zimmer Bradley

• 1982
• The Arthurian Legend told through the eyes and
  lives of the women of the legends.
• Protagonist (of this particular novel in the
  series) is Morgan Le Fay.
• She is not merely a two-dimensional, evil witch
  as she is portrayed in the other legends.
• Largely focused on the religious (Christian vs.
  Pagan) aspect of the legend.

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Some Films of King Arthur

• Disneys The Sword in the Stone (1963)
• Adaptation of the first book in Whites Quartet.
• Camelot (1967)
• Musical. Based on the last two books in Whites
  Quartet.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
• Parody/Burlesque of Arthurian Legend, much in the
  same vain as Twain.
• Excalibur (1981)
• Fairly decent telling of Legend to a modern
  audience. (So Ive read. I havent seen it).
• First Knight (1995)
• Follows Lancelot and Guineveres love. Draws
  from elements of Chrétien de Troyes. (Havent
  seen this one either).
• King Arthur (2004)
• The true story of the real Arthur. Ha!

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The Real Arthur

• There is an occidental obsession with discovering
  who King Arthur really was.
• And several results thereof.
• Identified with everything from a Roman soldier
  to a Welsh druid.
• Several of the myths are, in fact, real events of
  a real king Riothamus.
• Seems to me that Arthur merely represents
  whatever a peculiar author of particular age
  wants to suggest about said age and the roots of
  that ages mentality, be it either by satire,
  metonymy, metaphor, or, simply, just by
  recognition of a known symbolic individual.

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Works Cited

• Ashe, Geoffrey. The Discovery of King Arthur.
  Ace Books, New York 1996.
• Bradley, Marion Zimmer. The Mists of Avalon.
  Random House, New York
• 1982.
• Goodrich, Norma Lorre. King Arthur. Perennial
  Library, New York 1986.
• Merriam Webster. Encyclopedia of Literature.
  Ed. Kathleen Kuiper.
• Springfield, Merriam-Webster Inc 1995.
• Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene. Ed. Thomas
  P. Roche Jr. Penguin
• Books, London 1987.
• Tennyson, Alfred. Idylls of the King. Penguin
  Books, London 1996.
• Twain, Mark. A Connecticut Yankee in King
  Arthurs Court. Barnes
• Noble Classics, New York 2005.
• White, T.H. The Once and Future King. Ace
  Books, New York 1996.

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Images

• http//media.photobucket.com/image/king20arthur/p
  rime999/CliveOwen-KingArthur-1.jpg
• http//www.supanet.com/media/00/16/13/monty_pytho
  n_430.jpg
• Le Morte DArthur http//www.deathdyinggriefandmo
  urning.com/Death--Dying-Images2020-40/34-d-Death
  -of-King-Arthur.jpg
• Faerie Queene http//www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng
  /sfq/img/36300.jpg
• Idylls of the King http//1.bp.blogspot.com/_NJd0
  pYUa1U0/Rj9ITGdzaiI/AAAAAAAABF8/tpT1MigY3yI/s1600-
  h/Death3.jpg
• Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court
  http//3dreplicators.com/New20Front20Page/News/D
  raft20Articles/eTech20200720draft20clips/eTech
  20200720draft_clip_image003.jpg
• The Once and Future King http//theundeadbloggerr
  eviews.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/sword-in-the-st
  one-01.jpg
• The Mists of Avalon http//tinypic.com/view.php?p
  ic2q0nej9s3