ABSTRACT
This collection provides a new innovative and wide-ranging introduction to the world of Arthur by looking beyond the canonical texts and themes, taking instead a transversal perspective on the Arthurian narrative. Together, its thirty-four chapters explore the continuities that make the material recognizable from one century to another, as well as transformations specific to particular times and places, revealing the astonishing variety of adaptations that have made the Arthurian story popular in large parts of the world.
Divided into four parts—The World of Arthur in the British Isles, The European World of Arthur, The Material World of Arthur, and The Transversal World of Arthur—the volume tracks the legend’s movement across temporal, geographical, and material boundaries. Broadly chronological, each part views the unfolding Arthurian story through its own lens, while temporal and geographical overlaps between the sections underscore the proximity of these developments in the legend’s history.
Ranging from early Latin chronicles and Welsh poetry to twenty-first century anime and political conspiracies, this comprehensive and illuminating book will be of interest to anyone researching Arthurian literature or tracing the evolution of medievalism through literature, the visual arts, and popular culture.
Introduction PART 1: The World of Arthur in the British Isles 1. King Arthur: Hero or Legend? 2. The Invention of Arthurian Britain: Arthur in the Early Welsh Literary Tradition 3. Arthur Among the Nine Worthies 4. Prophecy and Place in the Arthurian Tradition 5. Spenser, Malory, and Regionalism in Arthurian Literature 6. The Postmedieval Arthur at War 7. The Arthurian Legends in the Sixteenth Century: The Misfortunes of Arthur and The Faerie Queene 8. "what’s past is prologue" – Early Modern Explorations of Arthurian Romance and Shakespeare’s The Tempest 9. Victorian Medievalisms: Rehabilitating Arthur in Eleonora Louisa Hervey’s Feasts 10. Staging Guenevere’s Maternity in Richard Hovey’s The Marriage of Guenevere and The Birth of Galahad PART 2: The European World of Arthur 11. The Byelorussian Tristan 12. Continuity and Discontinuity in the Irish Arthurian Romances 13. No Country for Young Men: The Challenge of the Medieval Greek Old Knight 14. A Not-So-Unique Text: Melekh Artus and Medieval Jewish Arthurian Romance 15. Viduvilt: The Yiddish World of Arthur 16. No Knights, No England, No Arthur: Arthurian Theater in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Germany 17. Guiron le Courtois Across Borders: The Life of a Prose Narrative Cycle 18. Optical Illusion, Illusory Objects, and the Quest of the Holy Grail in the Vulgate Queste del Saint Graal and Perlesvaus PART 3: The Material World of Arthur 19. Making and Illustrating Arthurian Manuscripts 20. Sir Palamedes the Indelibly "Saracen" Knight: Heraldry, Monstrosity, and Race in Fifteenth-Century Arthurian Romance Manuscripts 21. Minding the Gaps: Topology and Gender in the Remediation of Medieval German Arthurian Romance 22. Arthurian Imagination in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century British Art 23. Finding Arthur in the Percy Folio 24. A History of Malory’s Morte Darthur in Print 25. A Grave Discovery? Guinevere’s Death and Burial at Amesbury in Medieval and Early Modern Tradition PART 4: The Transversal World of Arthur 26. The Arthurian Legends in America 27. In the Ancient Days of Sagas: Astrid Lindgren and the Legacy of Arthurian Romance 28. "Hail to the king[s], baby": Arthur vs Army of Darkness 29. Arthur in Modern Fantasy Literature 30. Cinema Arthuriana and the Knights of the Not-So-Round Table 31. The Grail is in Another Castle: The World of Arthur in Digital Games 32. Desire and the Flexible Grail: The Japanese Fate Franchise and Evolving Notions of Arthurian Power 33. "Moor" and "Saracen" in Medieval and Contemporary Arthurian Texts 34. Guy Ritchie, King Arthur, and the Great Conspiracy
