Arthur's Court Research Articles

'wepte and shryked:' Social Grief and the Conclusion of Malory's Le Morte Darthur

Abstract: Through the person of King Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory articulates an emotional response not experienced by one, but as a form of 'social grief,' a grief formed outside the normative bounds and emotional regime of the Arthurian community. Similar to Malory's evocation of the despair of the Arthurian court, we also grieve the loss of civil society, replaced by the shadow side of the American ideals of individual freedom and constitutional rights.

Literarischer Transfer auf Umwegen: Ironisches Sprechen im ›Löwenritter‹ Chrétiens de Troyes und im Kreuzlied Hartmanns von Aue, ›Ich var mit iuweren hulden‹ (MF 218,5)

Abstract Chrétien de Troyes’s Old French Arthurian romances have mostly found expression in corresponding German romances such as Hartmann von Aue’s ›Iwein‹. Generally, Chrétien’s romances have not influenced the German poets’ lyrical works, so far as known, with one single exception: an ironic passage from Chrétien’s ›Chevalier au lion‹ could have served as a model for the ironic speech in Hartmann’s crusade song ›Ich var mit iuweren hulden‹ (MF 218,5). In Chrétien, Calogrenant, Yvain’s cousin, informs the Arthurian court of his defeat by Esclados, and Yvain is eager to take revenge for his cousin. By using proverbial expressions which allude, inter alia, to the crusades against Noradin or Saladin, Keu, however, ironically reproaches Yvain for not following his words with action whereas at table, he is talking about heroic deeds he would achieve the following day. The discrepancy between word and deed is also a theme in Hartmann’s crusade song. A much discussed passage in the song’s second stanza first declares true love for God and then for one’s lady as being willing to embark on a crusade. Then, however, a logical break occurs, when the singer, obviously on the point of departing, declares: ›yet if Saladin were alive and all his army, they would never take me a foot out of Franconia‹ (MF 218,19f.). Hartmann undoubtedly knew the ironic Noradin passage from Chrétien. Therefore, the question arises if the Saladin passage in Hartmann’s crusade song should also be read ironically.

Ethics in the Arthurian Legend, ed. Melissa Ridley Elmes and Evelyn Meyer. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2023, xx, 400 pp.

Sixteen contributors here guide us round Arthurian literature from the eleventh century to the twenty-first. We start with Melissa Ridley Elmes on the Mabinogion tale of Culhwch and Olwen, dating from the 1090s and a phantasmagoria of glamour and brutality. Not much ethics there. Evelyn Meyer moves us to the years about 1200 and the Germany of Hartmann von Aue and Wolfram von Eschenbach, who both describe an Arthurian court now more refined (if not much more ethical). Although Arthur and his knights seem to keep their good reputation, scrutiny unmasks it as “tarnished” and “questioned” (p. 64). Jonathan Seelye Martin then analyzes marriage in Hartmann’s Iwein; Joseph Derosier’s concern is ethical reading in Perlesvaus. The first ends ambiguously. While Iwein and Laudine marry happily, the author quotes Hartmann’s enigmatic observation, “I don’t know what happened to them afterwards” (p. 84). The second is more forthright, this thirteenth-century Grail romance emerging as a “politically engaged” one of fantasies about “colonial conquest” and fetishes of “crusader violence” (p. 108).

Fun with Nitroglycerin: Piecing Together the “Exploding Boy” Plagiarism Controversy

Fun with Nitroglycerin: Piecing Together the “Exploding Boy” Plagiarism Controversy

In Memoriam: Geoffrey Thomas Leslie Ashe, MBE FRSL (29 March 1923–30 January 2022)

In MemoriamGeoffrey Thomas Leslie Ashe, MBE FRSL (29 March 1923–30 January 2022) Christopher Snyder Click for larger view View full resolution In January the Arthurian world lost one of its most prolific and enthusiastic voices with the passing of independent scholar Geoffrey Ashe. Known especially for his work with the Camelot Research Committee in the late 1960s and for identifying Riothamus as a candidate for the historical King [End Page 102] Arthur, Geoffrey Ashe's writing about Arthur dates back to his 1957 book King Arthur's Avalon: The Story of Glastonbury. A London native educated at the University of British Columbia and Trinity College, Cambridge, Ashe penned works on Gandhi and mysticism as well as his many books on Arthur, Merlin, and the history and legends surrounding Glastonbury, where he had resided since 1974. Co-founding the Camelot Research Committee with archaeologists Ralegh Radford and Leslie Alcock, Ashe served as editor of The Quest for Arthur's Britain (1971), the book that introduced many to the excavations at such Arthurian sites as Tintagel, Glastonbury, and South Cadbury hillfort. In a 1981 Speculum article Ashe put forward a case for the Legend of St. Goeznovius being the 'very ancient book' that provided Geoffrey of Monmouth with part of his Arthurian narrative. This was followed by a more detailed argument, one involving the historical British warlord Riothamus (fl. 470), made in his book The Discovery of King Arthur (1985), in subsequent pieces in Arthuriana, and on numerous televised documentaries. While an energetic advocate for Arthur-Riothamus, Ashe recognized the limitations of our historical evidence for the period and encouraged the quests of others looking for Arthurian origins. He was a kind and generous host to many Arthurian scholars and students who visited him over the years, whether touring Glastonbury Abbey or having tea at his home at the foot of Glastonbury Tor. In 2012 at the New Year Honours, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II recognized Geoffrey Ashe as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for Services to Heritage. As Norris Lacy, his co-editor for The Arthurian Handbook (1988) wrote in Arthuriana in 2013, Ashe was an 'Eminent Arthurian,' 'a popularizer, but in the best sense of the word'—he joyfully shared medieval history, literature, and scholarship with the broadest of audiences. He advised numerous contemporary Arthurian novelists, most notably Marion Zimmer Bradley, and helped the producers of the 1967 film Camelot locate Arthur's court in Somerset. Geoffrey Ashe is synonymous with the quest for an historical King Arthur, and he met both the fame and the 'slings and arrows' that came with this role equally with great courtoisie. [End Page 103] Christopher Snyder Mississippi State University Copyright © 2022 Arthuriana

Realism and Power in Mark Twain's

Realism and Power in Mark Twain's

Amy Kaplan on Realism and the Imperatives of Empire

Amy Kaplan on Realism and the Imperatives of Empire

Amy Kaplan and the McDonaldization of Mark Twain

Amy Kaplan and the McDonaldization of Mark Twain

Race, Sex, and God

Race, Sex, and God

Now is the Time for A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Now is the Time for A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

The Life of Mark Twain: The Middle Years, 1871–1891

The Life of Mark Twain: The Middle Years, 1871–1891

The shadow of the bear

AbstractNew approaches built over the past ten years make it possible to address several long-standing questions regardingGuiron le Courtois. In particular, these studies illuminate ambiguities related to the literary origins of the protagonist and of his family. Guiron’s lineage as well as that of Galeholt le Brun, his mentor, include powerful individuals; and yet these strong characters remain peripheral, seldom crossing into the orbit of the Arthurian court. Of their lives only certain segments are known, and these alternate with imprisonment and incognito chivalric adventures. TheRoman de Guiron, the core narrative of the cycle, most likely drew the protagonist’s name from the tradition of Arthurianlaisbut reinvented from scratch his chivalric biography, playing on the ambiguity of the relations between Guiron’s family and the Bruns, the family of Galeholt. One mirrors the other, and both seem to converge towards the archaic figures of the giant and the bear, while the plot unfolds in an unusual retro-chronology, drawing the reader’s sight to their origins.

"Huck Finn at King Arthur's Court"

F. O. Matthiessen was a key player in an event which took place at Schloss Leopoldskron in Salzburg in the summer of 1947 and which launched the legendary Salzburg Seminar and may be considered the birth of American studies in Europe. Matthiessen's reflections on this remarkable session, From the Heart of Europe, remains outstanding in its conjuring of a humanist vision amidst ruins. This travelogue, his last major—if largely forgotten—work published shortly before his suicide, has been variously reassessed as an elegiac document of his tragic failure, as a politically deluded scholar, and as a groundbreaking foray into sketching out a radically alternate transnational understanding of American studies avant la lettre. These highly diverging perspectives on Matthiessen's final book, in particular, and on the professional and personal troubles during his last years, more generally, account for the lasting myth-making fascination with Matthiessen, which has left its mark not only on academic discourses ranging from socialist criticism to queer theory but may also be found in the novels of May Sarton (Faithful Are the Wounds) and Mark Merlis (American Studies). Hence, this article reflects on Matthiessen's impact on the 1947 seminar and traces the legacy of this controversial founding father of American studies.

Financing a Green New Deal

The Great Depression galvanized the New Deal in the United States to recover the economy, relieve the poor and unemployed, and reform the financial backbone of the country. Today, the impending adverse effects of climate change have governments proposing analogous Green New Deals. Recently in Energy Research & Social Science, Galvin and Healy critically examine the economic viability and wide-spanning societal, monetary, and environmental implications of the US Green New Deal proposals.

Heterotopien des Feierns

Abstract In so far as Arthurian narrative can be considered to be a utopian project, it converges in the festival motif at the Arthurian court. However, the festival ideal in particular is in danger of losing grip on reality as the process of literalizing Arthurian Romances advances. In this context the final festivities in the Arthurian Romances of the Pleier serve as a mediating principle. By connecting the leitmotifs of the histoire with his depiction of festivity scenes, the Pleier conceptualizes them as a space in which courtly norms are negotiated in a lively fashion. The festival scenes thus serve as venues for representation and reflection, thereby becoming ›heterotopias of celebrating‹.

The Life of Mark Twain: The Middle Years, 1871–1891

The Life of Mark Twain: The Middle Years, 1871–1891

Arthurianism in Early Plantagenet England: From Henry II to Edward I by Christopher Michael Berard

Reviewed by: Arthurianism in Early Plantagenet England: From Henry II to Edward I by Christopher Michael Berard Roderick McDonald Berard, Christopher Michael, Arthurianism in Early Plantagenet England: From Henry II to Edward I ( Arthurian Studies, 88), Woodbridge, The Boydell Press, 2019; hardback; pp. 378; R.R.P. £60.00; ISBN 9781783273744. Christopher Michael Berard examines textual examples of Arthurianism spanning the reigns of five twelfth- and thirteenth-century Angevin/Plantagenet kings: Henry II, Richard I, John, Henry III, and Edward I. He explores the purpose, political significance, intended audience, and effectiveness of examples in the textual record, and incorporates a wide range of literary, annalistic, legal, and [End Page 224] historiographic material across a variety of languages, locating these texts in their broader socio-political contexts. The argument is broadly as follows. During the reign of Henry II, Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia rerum Brittanie came to be a pivotal work, asserting a historical rather than mythic Arthur and reducing the ethnic Celtic 'Breton Hope' of Arthur's promised return to an absurdity. This theme was developed further through other contemporary works, including Étienne of Rouen's Draco Normannicus, Walter of Châtillon's Tractatus, and Peter of Blois's epistles. As a result, Henry II came to be portrayed as the symbolic revival of Arthur, while the Welsh/British threat was marginalized as bad-faith Christian. In the next chapter, Berard finds, in the reign of Richard I, a continuation of the discourse of Arthur as the ideal model for, and ancestor of, the Angevins, rather than a king to the Britons to be victorious over the Normans. The next two chapters, in which Berard traces a decline in Angevin Arthurian pretensions, deal with John and Henry III. During John's reign Arthurianism played out prominently against him: French and Castilian courts and the rebellious English baronage drew upon Arthur as an ideological weapon, and Richard's nominated heir to the throne, Arthur of Brittany (John's adversary), became the 'Breton Hope'. The Capetians vilified John so as to justify their claim on Angevin lands; so too, the Castilians used Arthurianism to argue a claim against Angevin land in Gascony; and the English barons idealized Arthur's court in their pursuit of reform against John. Then, in Henry III's reign, Arthur reached the nadir of his Angevin fortunes, becoming a focal point for the Gwynedd dynasty in the wars against Henry for control of Wales and the Welsh Marches. The final, lengthy, chapter of the book, where Berard discusses a series of Arthurian-themed occasions, looks at the reign of Edward I, arguing that Edward saw himself as the legitimate heir of an historical Arthur, giving justification for his bloody defeat of the Welsh and his expansion into Scotland. The breadth of vision in this volume is ambitious, and the range of texts examined is extensive, but the book is not without issues. 'Arthurianism', per se, remains undefined, even though it is the main analytical category of the book. In places the concept seems to embrace those aspects of Geoffrey's Historia that are wider than Arthur's court: Geoffrey's Trojan history of Britain for example. Likewise, Berard treats Edward I's enactment of a chivalric code as evidence of Arthurianism, but no case has been made for this, nor for Edward's use of knighthood as a means for political control and fiscal resourcing for expansionist politics as being specifically Arthurian. Berard also invokes classical, biblical, and wider (non-Arthurian) courtly material in his discussion, but doesn't seem to approach these as a category of the same class as his Arthurian material. Indeed, some of his analyses even seem to show signs of post hoc theorizing resulting in a set of false positives regarding the role and importance of Arthurianism, absent any wider mapping of the non-Arthurian material, and this is the most noteworthy shortcoming of this book. [End Page 225] There is also a directionality issue here. On the one hand the medieval author is presented as the initiator of discourse, comparing the medieval king against a mytho-historic Arthur. But in places Berard argues that the king was the motivator, modelling himself...

James Bond, A Grifter, A Video Avatar, and a Shark Walk into King Arthur's Court: The Ever-Expanding Canon of Cinema Arthuriana

James Bond, A Grifter, A Video Avatar, and a Shark Walk into King Arthur's Court: The Ever-Expanding Canon of Cinema Arthuriana

Colgrevance’s Supposed Shame in Ywain and Gawain

In this article, I argue that, unlike his French counterpart Calogrenant, the Middle English Colgrevance is not shamed at the well. Instead, he is successful in his endeavors to find marvels and to return to the Arthurian court to tell his tale.

Erzählend erinnern

This paper analyses how Heinrich von dem Türlin creates a metadiscourse about generic issues and conventions of Arthurian tales in his Romance Diu Crône by outlining the importance of narration itself for the Arthurian court. Based on two scenes where first the Arthurian court and than Gawein as main character of the tale are on the verge of forgetting themselves, the anaysis shows how processes of telling one’s own story are crucial not only for memoria but even for one’s own existence. By shifting these observations from the level of the narrated world to the narration itself the close connections between telling and being can be understood as an implicit theory of performative narration.