Difference between revisions of "2007-08 AM Le Morte Darthur (1485)"
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| − | The legendary King Arthur, the mysteries around his sword Excalibur, the stories of his quasi democratic Round Table, his tragic struggle between love, treason and an all too powerful enemy invading the British Isles have inspired the European audience since the 12th century. The wave of Provencal, Middle High German and Middle English versified Arthurian romances merged into the production of the first modern European prose romances | + | The legendary King Arthur, the mysteries around his sword Excalibur, the stories of his quasi democratic Round Table, his tragic struggle between love, treason and an all too powerful enemy invading the British Isles have inspired the European audience since the 12th century. The wave of Provencal, Middle High German and Middle English versified Arthurian romances merged into the production of the first modern European prose romances in the 15th century which culminated - another century later - in the ''Amadis'', the arch romance devoured by ''Don Quixote''. The 17th and 18th centuries distanced themselves both from the erroneous histories related here and from the genre of romances they had inspired. A new interest arose at the beginning of the 19th century with the new nationalism of the age, its self proclaimed "romanticism", its search lost identities in the European middle. The "medieval" text production was rediscovered, the Arthurian world is today omnipresent with a mass production of fantasy novels, video games and movies. |
| − | The course will focus on William Caxton's edition of Sir Thomas Malroy's ''Le Morte Darthur'' first published in 1485 - most certainly not the elegant, witty and beautiful reading earlier versified romances offered yet the text which most effectively compiled the plots of the preceding romantic production. | + | The course will focus on William Caxton's edition of Sir Thomas Malroy's ''Le Morte Darthur'' first published in 1485 - most certainly not the elegant, witty and beautiful reading earlier versified romances offered, yet the text which most effectively compiled the plots of the preceding romantic production. |
| − | Why was there an audience for a book like this at the "beginning of the Early Modern Period? How | + | Why was there an audience for a book like this at the "beginning" of the "Early Modern Period"? How did the book relate to the preceding production of romances and histories? How does it compare to the fashionable ''Amadis'' the next century was to love so much? How does it read against the backdrop of the 19th and 20th century renaissance of the Arthurian world? The course should offer a cultural history of the text and its fictional world. |
==Topics== | ==Topics== | ||
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* Sources in Europe's mythology and history | * Sources in Europe's mythology and history | ||
* The renaissance of chivalry at the beginning of the modern era | * The renaissance of chivalry at the beginning of the modern era | ||
| + | * Love and gender relations in Malory's ''Morte Darthur'' | ||
* The text which shaped our view of the medieval world: Malory's King Arthur and Mark Twain's ''Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court'' (1889). | * The text which shaped our view of the medieval world: Malory's King Arthur and Mark Twain's ''Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court'' (1889). | ||
* From Fantasy to video game Arthur's table round in modern culture. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur_in_various_media en.wikipedia.org] for modern adaptations of the sujet. | * From Fantasy to video game Arthur's table round in modern culture. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur_in_various_media en.wikipedia.org] for modern adaptations of the sujet. | ||
Revision as of 14:31, 5 July 2007
The legendary King Arthur, the mysteries around his sword Excalibur, the stories of his quasi democratic Round Table, his tragic struggle between love, treason and an all too powerful enemy invading the British Isles have inspired the European audience since the 12th century. The wave of Provencal, Middle High German and Middle English versified Arthurian romances merged into the production of the first modern European prose romances in the 15th century which culminated - another century later - in the Amadis, the arch romance devoured by Don Quixote. The 17th and 18th centuries distanced themselves both from the erroneous histories related here and from the genre of romances they had inspired. A new interest arose at the beginning of the 19th century with the new nationalism of the age, its self proclaimed "romanticism", its search lost identities in the European middle. The "medieval" text production was rediscovered, the Arthurian world is today omnipresent with a mass production of fantasy novels, video games and movies.
The course will focus on William Caxton's edition of Sir Thomas Malroy's Le Morte Darthur first published in 1485 - most certainly not the elegant, witty and beautiful reading earlier versified romances offered, yet the text which most effectively compiled the plots of the preceding romantic production.
Why was there an audience for a book like this at the "beginning" of the "Early Modern Period"? How did the book relate to the preceding production of romances and histories? How does it compare to the fashionable Amadis the next century was to love so much? How does it read against the backdrop of the 19th and 20th century renaissance of the Arthurian world? The course should offer a cultural history of the text and its fictional world.
Topics
Those who are planning to join the seminar may contribute thoughts on what they'd like to do in the following list:
- Sources in Europe's mythology and history
- The renaissance of chivalry at the beginning of the modern era
- Love and gender relations in Malory's Morte Darthur
- The text which shaped our view of the medieval world: Malory's King Arthur and Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court (1889).
- From Fantasy to video game Arthur's table round in modern culture. See en.wikipedia.org for modern adaptations of the sujet.
Texts
I originally intended to base the seminar on Caxton's fist edition published in 1485 as offered by EEBO:
A modernised-spelling version of Caxton's edition - and that speaks against it - is offered as a Penguin classic:
- Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur. Ed. Cowen, Janet (1970). Introduction by Lawlor, John. 2 vols. London: Penguin. ISBN 0-679-60099-X, ISBN 0-14-043044-X.
The original spelling Caxton text is offered on the internet in the University of Michigan's "Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse":
The best alternative is the Winchester Manuscript as published in the critical Norton edition. The problem is here the wild layout (an attempt to reproduce graphical aspects of the original handwritten text) and the fact that the manuscript remained unknown till its rediscovery in 1934. I favour Caxton's text, as it was actually read - it is the text which unfolded the influence we will be interested in.
My recommendation is the Penguin-edition for easy reading or, better (though regrettably neither annotated nor available as a book) the University of Michigan's html-Web-edition.
