ENG 356

Fall 2009

Dr. Wright

The Arthurian Tradition:  Welsh Myth to Modern Film

This web site is NOT a complete syllabus for ENG 356.  It simply provides links to supplemental texts and images that will be studied as part of the course.

Rex quondam rexque futurus 

Archeology and topography

• The Historical Arthur: A Bibliography
• Winchester Round Table
• Tintagel Castle (Cornwall)
• "Arthur Stone" from Tintagel
• Glastonbury Abbey: Arthur's First Tomb
• Glastonbury Abbey: Arthur's Second Tomb
• Exhuming Arthur: Gerald of Wales, 1223

Textual Traditions

• Y Gododdin (ca. 600):  excerpt
• Gildas, De Excidio Britanniae (ca. 540)
• Nennius , Historia Brittonum (ca. 800):  esp. chapter 50
• Annales Cambriae (Annals of Wales) (ca. 950):  esp. years 516 and 537
• Geoffrey of Monmouth , Historia Regum Britanniae (ca. 1138)
• Wace, Roman de Brut (1155)
• Lawman, Brut (ca. 1200)

The Rise of Romance:  Chivalry and Courtly Love

Images of the warrior before 1100

• Beowulf, Battle of Maldon, Chanson de Roland
• The Battle of Hastings (1066) and the Bayeux Tapestry

Images of the knight in the age of chivalry (12th-16th century)

• Jean, Duc de Berry (d. 1416), Les tres riches heures (ca. 1412-1416)
• Limbourg brothers (Paul, Jean, Hermann)
• Images of peasants and laborers

                February

                March

                July

                September

• Images of aristocrats

               January

               April

               May

               August

• Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), In Praise of the New Knighthood
• Andreas Capellanus, The Art of Courtly Love (ca.1184-86)
• Philip of Alsace, Count of Flanders (d. 1191)
• Marie, Countess of Champagne (d. 1204)
• Chretien de Troyes (fl. 1170-1200)

The Quest of the Holy Grail

• The Grail as Idea and Artifact:  Celtic and Christian sources
• Queste del Saint Graal (Old French, ca. 1215-35)
• The Antioch Chalice
• Valenica Holy Chalice
• Genoa:  Sacro Cratino

The Quest as Cliffhanger

• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (dir. S. Spielberg, 1989):  shooting script
• Arthur on Film: Bibliography

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (late 14th century)

• Visualizing Gawain:  British Library, MS. Cotton Nero, A.x.
• Visualizing Arthur:  Fragment of a tapestry commissioned by Jean, duc de Berry
• Visualizing Arthur:  Woodcut (Rouen, 1488)
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Middle English text), ed. J.R.R. Tolkien and E.V. Gordon
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Modern hypertext), trans. M. Boroff, rev. M. Twomey

Appropriating Arthur:  Cinematic Versions

• Excalibur (dir. John Boorman, 1981):  film script (preliminary draft)

Appropriating Arthur:  Victorian Versions

• Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92), "Lady of Shallott" (1832)
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Lady of Shalott" (1842)
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Morte d'Arthur"
• Aubrey Beardsley, Images from "Le Morte d'Arthur" (1893)
• Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82), "Lady of Shalott" (1857, book engraving)
• Edward Burne-Jones (1833-98), "The Beguiling of Merlin" (1872-77, oil painting)
• Arthur Hughes (1832-1915), "The Lady of Shalott" (1872-73, oil painting) 
• John William Waterhouse (1849-1917), "'I am half sick of shadows,' said the Lady of Shalott" (1860, oil painting)
• John William Waterhouse,  "The Lady of Shalott"  (1888, oil painting) 
• William Holman Hunt (1827-1910), "The Lady of Shalott" (oil painting, 1886)
• Sidney Harold Meteyard (1868-1947), "'I am half sick of shadows,' said the Lady of Shalott" (1913, oil painting)
• More artists and illustrators
• For further reading:  Debra N. Mancoff, The Arthurian Revival in Victorian Art (1990) and Muriel Whitaker, The Legends of King Arthur in Art (1990)

 Richard Wagner (1813-1883):  Parsifal

Parsifal:  Libretto and score (1882)

Ludwig II of Bavaria (1845-86)

Neuschwannstein Castle

Richard Wagner (1813-83)

 Bayreuth Festspielhaus (1882)

Mark Twain:  A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

• Illustrations by Dan Beard (1850-1941) as contemporary satire
• Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)

Arthurian Apocalypse:  Paul Bryers, In a Pig's Ear 

•  Myrddhin (legendary Welsh seer, 6th century):  pp. 1-3.
• Flaktower I:  Berlin Zoo (1945):  pp. 5-13.
• Dubcek, Prague Spring, and Soviet invasion (1968):  pp. 39-43.
• William Holman Hunt, "The Awakening Conscience" (1853):  pp. 72-73.
• Beech Wood (Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar):  pp. 77-81.
• Neo-fascist attacks :  pp. 77-81, 221-24.
• Site of Fuhrerbunker (1945), Berlin Wall (1961-89), and Pink Floyd concert (1990): pp. 83-90
• Count Claus von Stauffenberg and assassination attempt (July 1944):  pp. 125-29.
• Tachelas (bombed department store and current avant-garde art space):  p. 154.
• Hieronymus Bosch, "Garden of Earthly Delights" (ca. 1504):  p. 155.
• Albrecht Durer, "Knight, Death, and the Devil" (1513):  pp. 156-57.
• Carl Jung:  the collective unconscious and the role of archetypes

David Lodge, Small World

• Interview with David Lodge :  Arthurian elements in Small World (1984)