Arthurian Legend In The Twentieth And Twenty First Centuries

The King Arthur we imagine did not exist in history. He is the result of stories told and retold, changed and added to by storytellers for centuries, each making the story reflect the storyteller’s time and values. The chapters in this book look at movies, manga, comic books, a television show, and traditional books released since 1960 to explore some of the ways King Arthur has been reimagined in the past 60 years. Interpreting Avalon High and The Kind Who Would Be King, Camelot 3000 and King Arthur vs. Dracula, Fate/Zero, John Steinbeck’s The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights, the influence of Arthurian legend on Harry Potter, Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King, John Boorman’s Excalibur, Jerry Zucker’s First Knight, Antoine Fuqua’s King Arthur, Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword, Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman: The Secret Service, Iris Murdoch’s The Time of the Angels, and the BBC series Merlin, the authors find that while we are still interested in the idea of King Arthur, we may also want his story to be more racially and gender inclusive, less elitist, and in some cases, more secular.

Covers the evolution of the legend over time and analyses the major themes that have emerged.

Scholars of popular culture turn their attention to various expressions of the Arthurian legend, most from the 20th century, with a more balanced consideration of women (writers, characters, and critics) than has traditionally been the case. Among the topics are the image of Morgan Le Fay, postmodern Arthur, Mark Twain, Joseph Campbell, and several recent movies. No index. Paper edition (unseen), $19.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

King Arthur in America analyzes the tremendous appeal of the Arthurian legends in America by examining the ways that Americans have found to democratize the Matter of Britain and to incorporate aspects of it not only into America's own mythologies but also into literature, film, social history, and popular culture.

This collection provides an innovative and wide-ranging introduction to the world of Arthur by looking beyond the canonical texts and themes, taking instead a transversal perspective on the Arthurian narrative. Together, its thirty-four chapters explore the continuities that make the material recognizable from one century to another, as well as transformations specific to particular times and places, revealing the astonishing variety of adaptations that have made the Arthurian story popular in large parts of the world. Divided into four parts—The World of Arthur in the British Isles, The European World of Arthur, The Material World of Arthur, and The Transversal World of Arthur — the volume tracks the legend’s movement across temporal, geographical, and material boundaries. Broadly chronological, each part views the unfolding Arthurian story through its own lens, while temporal and geographical overlaps between the sections underscore the proximity of these developments in the legend’s history. Ranging from early Latin chronicles and Welsh poetry to twenty-first century anime and political conspiracies, this comprehensive and illuminating book will be of interest to anyone researching Arthurian literature or tracing the evolution of medievalism through literature, the visual arts, and popular culture.