Starting with Geoffrey Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain around 1138, stories of King Arthur became immensely popular in England and France, in Germany and Italy, and in all the other countries Arthur was supposed to have conquered or visited, including Norway and Wales. Almost as quickly, skeptical historians were shaking their heads, declaring that there never had been an Arthur or at least that not everything written about Arthur was true. Arthur is indeed the "once and future king" around whom form political ideals and satires, historical propositions and archaeological efforts, and entertaining tales in all media--then, and now too.
In this course we will focus primarily on the medieval Arthur, with opportunities to consider later versions. We begin by looking at some of the surviving evidence of the sources Geoffrey used to create his King Arthur, and some of the theories about who King Arthur might have been. Most of our time will be devoted to reading medieval stories about Arthur written in England and France, including excerpts from Geoffrey's History, a romance of Chretien de Troyes, the English romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, portions of the French Lancelot-Graal and of Malory's Morte d'Arthur, and a bit of Tennyson and T. H. White. We will take advantage of the long summer session classes to view large parts of two movies, Eric Rohmer's Perceval and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Students will be expected to keep up with the reading, which will often require them to read ahead.
Students will write two papers, in addition to some quizzes of various kinds.
This mosaic, part of a huge Tree of Life pattern on the floor of a church in Otranto, near the tip of the boot heel of Italy, dates from the 11th century and identifies a king riding a goat as Rex Arturus, Latin for King Arthur. The goat suggests some kind of diabolical identity for Arthur.
In Modena, Italy, early in the 12th century, someone sculpted this archivolt over the north door. It shows a group of knights attacking a castle where a woman is held captive. The leader of the knights is identified as Artus de Bretania and the woman as Winlogee (Guinevere?). This seems to be a story told in the Life of St. Gildas, which eventually became the basis for the story of Lancelot and Guinevere. Glastonbury, UK, was the site of an abbey where, in 1184, a grave containing two bodies identified as Arthur and Guinevere was discovered. The town is still--or rather again--a site of pilgrimage for those who want to contact the spirit of ancient Britain.
