Arthurian legend
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The Arthurian Legends are the legends that concern the legendary history of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. Arthur is the chief subject of the Matter of Britain.
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[edit] History
Arthurian legend as a literary genre emerges in the 12th century as part of courtly medieval literature with authors such as Marie de France, Chrétien de Troyes and Geoffrey of Monmouth.
The creator of the familiar literary persona of Arthur was Geoffrey of Monmouth, with his pseudohistorical Historia Regum Britanniae ("History of the Kings of Britain"), written in the 1130s. The textual sources for Arthur are usually divided into those that were written before Geoffrey's Historia was published (known as 'pre-Galfridian' texts, from the Latin form of Geoffrey, Galfridus) and those that followed this, and could not avoid his influence (Galfridian, or post-Galfridian, texts).
The earliest literary references to Arthur come from Welsh and Breton sources. One of the most famous Welsh poetic references to Arthur comes in the Welsh collection of heroic death-songs known as Y Gododdin ("The Gododdin"), attributed to the 6th-century poet Aneirin. Y Gododdin is known only from a manuscript of the 13th century, so it is impossible to determine whether this passage is original or a later interpolation; it is often argued to go back to the 9th or 10th century.
[edit] The Arthurian cycle
The Arthurian literary cycle is the best known part of the Matter of Britain. It has succeeded largely because it tells two interlocking stories that many later authors have been intrigued by. One concerns Camelot, usually envisioned as a doomed utopia of chivalric virtue, undone by the fatal flaws of Arthur and Sir Lancelot. The other concerns the quests of the various knights to achieve the Holy Grail; some succeed (Galahad, Percival), and others fail (Lancelot).
The medieval tale of Arthur and his knights is full of Christian themes; those themes involve the destruction of human plans for virtue by the moral failures of their characters, and the quest for an important Christian relic. Finally, the relationships between the characters invited treatment in the tradition of courtly love, such as Lancelot and Guinevere, or Tristan and Iseult. In more recent years, the trend has been to attempt to link the tales of King Arthur and his knights with Celtic mythology, usually in highly romanticized, early twentieth century reconstructed versions.
Additionally, it is possible to read the Arthurian literature in general, and that concerned with the Grail tradition in particular, as an allegory of human development and spiritual growth (a theme explored by Joseph Campbell amongst others).
[edit] Characters and subjects
[edit] Arthur and his entourage
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[edit] Knights of the Round Table
[edit] Other important figures
[edit] See also
- Mystery
- Holy Grail
- The Mists of Avalon
- Excalibur
- Corineus
- Glastonbury
- Mons Badonicus
- Chivalry
- The Faerie Queene
- Knights of the Round Table
- List of Arthurian characters
- Sites and places associated with Arthurian legend
- Historical basis for King Arthur
- English historians in the Middle Ages
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- King Arthur's family
- King Arthur's messianic return
[edit] References
- Derek Pearsall, Arthurian Romance: A Short Introduction, Blackwell, Oxford, 2005
- Carol Dover (ed), A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, Boydell & Brewer, 2005
[edit] External links
- The Camelot Project contains a large selection of Arthurian etexts from the sixth to the early twentieth century
- Timeless Myths - Arthurian Legends Legends of Arthur, his knights and the Grail.
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