INTERDISCIPLINARY SEMINARY - THE ARTHURIAN TRADITION
Introduction
The Medieval Interdisciplinary Seminar will focus on Arthurian Legend, particularly as represented in the English literature of the Middle Ages. Our exploration of English Arthurian tradition will take us far back into the early medieval period and will enable us to explore how the legend of Arthur has been recast and reinvented in a range of artistic forms over the centuries, from chronicle to romance, poetry and prose, to the visual arts and modern-day cinema.
Central areas of study will be the earliest sources of the Arthurian legend in early chronicle tradition, the development of the legend into romance in the 12th-15th centuries and its connections with chivalric and courtly culture; the later resurgence of the legend in Victorian culture; and the reception of the legend in different media in modern times.
Class discussions will centre upon a group of key medieval Arthurian works, most of which are available as Penguin Classics. These include Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, the fourteenth-century poem, The Alliterative Morte Arthur, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the latter sections of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D'Arthur.
After looking in detail at ‘the Victorian Arthur’ (particularly in relation to the poetry of Tennyson and the paintings of the pre-Raphaelite artists), we will look finally at modern Arthurian adaptations including such Arthurian films as Excalibur, Camelot, First Knight, and the parody Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Indicative Interdisciplinary Seminar Programme
Week 1 : An Arthurian Itinerary
In this week’s introductory seminar we will look at the key strands of medieval Arthurian legend by undertaking an ‘Arthurian itinerary’ of the British Isles. Arthurian legend is linked with a number of localities in England and Wales (including Oxford) and we will explore how this regional connection was vital in the formation and dissemination of the legends we know today. The earliest Arthurian material hails from Wales while other legends of Arthur’s birth and parentage take us to Tintagel in Cornwall; the story of Arthur and the Holy Grail takes us to the sacred site of Glastonbury; a legend of Lancelot and Guinevere to Nottingham Castle; and Arthurian connections will also be traced with London and with Oxfordshire (including the site of Oxford Castle, a stone’s throw from St Peter’s College).
Reading: Geoffrey of Monmouth: History of the Kings of Britain
Richard Barber, King Arthur: Hero and Legend (1986).
Week 2: The chronicle and romance traditions
In this session we will explore how the medieval Arthurian tradition developed from its chronicle origins as poets began to use the legends as the subject matter of medieval romance. A study of twelfth and thirteenth century adaptations of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Latin History of the Kings of Britain by Wace and Layamon will help us to observe how the legends made the transition from historical to artistic treatments of The Matter of Britain. We will also consider the influence of the emergent cult of fin amor or ‘courtly love’ on the Arthurian tradition, particularly in the story of Lancelot and his adulterous love for Queen Guinever.
Reading:
Extracts from Layamon’s Arthur: The Arthurian Section of Layamon's Brut, ed. W.R.J Barron and S.C.Weinberg (Exeter, 2001)
Chretien de Troyes, The Knight of the Cart (Lancelot), in Arthurian Romances, translated William W. Kibler & Carleton Carroll (Penguin)
Marie de France, Lanval, in The Lais of Marie de France trans. Glyn S. Burgess & Keith Busby (Penguin)
Week 3: Legends of Arthur and Sir Gawain
In this third week we will look in detail at one of the masterpieces of English literature, the fourteenth-century romance, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Reading :
Edition:- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed. JRR Tolkien and EV Gordon (Oxford, 1971).
Translations:- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by Simon Armitage (London, 2006)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by JRR Tolkien (Grafton, 1975)
Week 4: Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur
In this session we will look at the final two books of Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur, the first work to relate the entire Arthurian legend in English. We will look at Malory’s indebtedness to other treatments of the story, such as the French Vulgate Cycle and the English poem known as the Stanzaic Morte Arthur before looking closely at Malory’s adaptation of the legend and its relationship to the historical context of the Wars of the Roses.
Reading :
Malory: Works, ed. Eugene Vinaver (Oxford, 1971) (from The Poisoned Apple to the end)
Le Morte Darthur, ed. Helen Cooper (Oxford, 1998) (from The Poisoned Apple to the end)
Extracts from The StanzaicMorte Arthure in King Arthur’s Death, ed. Larry D. Benson (Exeter, 1986);
The Lancelot-Grail Reader: Selections from the Medieval French Arthurian Cycle , ed. Norris J. Lacy (New York, 2000)
Week 5: Arthurian Adaptations
This session provides an opportunity to explore later adaptations of Arthurian legend in arts and literature. Using our knowledge of the medieval tradition, we explore how later adapters and artists perpetuate certain key themes and motifs from the legends, discarding others. We will look at the nineteenth-century medievalist revival which saw a flourishing of Arthurian poetry by authors such as Tennyson and Swinburne, as well as considering treatments of Arthurian legend in the magnificent visual arts of this period, particularly the vivid work of the Pre-Raphaelite painters, among them Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. We take the short walk to the Oxford Union where a series of murals on Arthurian themes by Rossetti and others are on display. We will also investigate the crucial role of the Arthurian legend in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, concluding with more recent adaptations of Arthurian legend in music, on stage & screen.
Reading :
Extracts from The Lancelot-Grail Reader: Selections from the Medieval French Arthurian Cycle, ed. Norris J. Lacy (New York, 2000)
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land, in his Collected Poems 1909-1962 (London: Faber and Faber, 1963)