The Arthurian Tradition An Introduction. Arthur’s Popularity Growing popularity –Since Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae (1135) –Popularity.

The Arthurian Tradition

An Introduction

Arthur’s Popularity

• Growing popularity– Since Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum

Britanniae (1135)

– Popularity has grown

– Literature in• English

• French

• German

• Italian

• Yiddish


• Major early English works:– Geoffrey– Sir Gawain and the Green Knight– Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale– Malory– Spenser’s Faerie Queene


• Major early continental works:– Lancelot du Lak (French)– Grail cycle (French)– Arthurian Romances, Chrieten de Troyes

(French)– Prose Vulgate cycle (French)– Parzival (German, Wolfram von Eschenbach)


• Modern works– Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Idylls

of the King– Tom Thumb– Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in

King Arthur’s Court

Arthur’s Popularity• 20th-Century Works

– E. B. White’s Once and Future King (1958)• compilation of stories written beginning in 1938

– E. B. White’s Book of Merlyn: The Unpublished Conclusion to The Once and Future King (1977)

– Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon– Stephen R. Lawhead’s Pendragon Cycle

• Taliesin• Merlin• Arthur


• Popular Culture– Comic Books– TV– Film– Animated features– Video games

Comics

Classic Comics

• Prince Valiant– Debut in Feb. 13, 1937– Still runs– Hal Forster created it

• Also did illustrations for Tarzan

Modern Comics

Arthur-Specific Comics• Arthur: King of Britain

• Black Knight

• Camelot 3000

• Knights of the Round Table

• Legends of Camelot

• Merlin

Film

• The Sword in the Stone (Disney, 1966)– Based on E. B. White’s story

• The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1951). Television series.

• Arthur the King (1986). Released on video as Merlin and the Sword.

• Arthur's Quest (2000). • A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1989).

Film• The Excalibur Kid (1998). • Dragonheart (1996). • Knights of the Round Table (1953). • Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). • Merlin (1998). • Merlin: The Return (2000). • "Once Upon a Future King," Hercules: The

Legendary Journeys (1999). • The Unidentified Flying Oddball (1979). Also

known as A Spaceman in King Arthur's Court. (Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee.)

Film

• Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

• Camelot (1967)

• Sword of the Valiant (1982)--SGGK

• Excalibur (1981)

• First Knight (1995)

• The Fisher King (1991)

The Arthurian Tradition An Introduction. Arthur’s Popularity Growing popularity –Since Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae (1135) –Popularity.

Documents

The Arthurian Tradition An Introduction. Arthur’s Popularity Growing popularity –Since Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae (1135) –Popularity.