The Arthurian Tradition

1
The Arthurian Tradition

• An Introduction

2
Arthurs Popularity

• Growing popularity
• Since Geoffrey of Monmouths Historia regum
  Britanniae (1135)
• Popularity has grown
• Literature in
• English
• French
• German
• Italian
• Yiddish

3
Arthurs Popularity

• Major early English works
• Geoffrey
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
• Chaucers Wife of Baths Tale
• Malory
• Spensers Faerie Queene

4
Arthurs Popularity

• 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)

5
Arthurs Popularity

• Modern works
• Alfred, Lord Tennysons Idylls of the King
• Tom Thumb
• Twains Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court

6
Arthurs Popularity

• 20th-Century Works
• E. B. Whites Once and Future King (1958)
• compilation of stories written beginning in 1938
• E. B. Whites Book of Merlyn The Unpublished
  Conclusion to The Once and Future King (1977)
• Marion Zimmer Bradleys Mists of Avalon
• Stephen R. Lawheads Pendragon Cycle
• Taliesin
• Merlin
• Arthur

7
Arthurs Popularity

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

8
Comics
9
Classic Comics

• Prince Valiant
• Debut in Feb. 13, 1937
• Still runs
• Hal Forster created it
• Also did illustrations for Tarzan

10
Modern Comics
11
Arthur-Specific Comics

• Arthur King of Britain
• Black Knight
• Camelot 3000
• Knights of the Round Table
• Legends of Camelot
• Merlin

12
Film

• The Sword in the Stone (Disney, 1966)
• Based on E. B. Whites 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).

13
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.)

14
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)