Difference between revisions of "2007-08 AM Le Morte Darthur (1485)"

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===Excerpts/Summaries===
 
===Excerpts/Summaries===
 
[[Le Morte Darthur Book 1]]<br>
 
[[Le Morte Darthur Book 1]]<br>
 
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[[Le Morte Darthur Book 3]]<br>
  
 
===Literature===
 
===Literature===

Revision as of 17:50, 10 November 2007

Dieser Kurs in das sogenannte Aquarium A10 1-121a verlegt.

denkt über mögliche Arbeitsthemen nach, notiert sie, setzt Eure Namen dahinter (vier Tilden ~~~~ und das Wiki macht daraus eine Unterschrift)


Übliche Freitag Abende: 20:00, nach dem Seminar, Tannenkampstr. 12, Wochenausklang dieses Semester mit Tafelrunde und Artus-Filmen. Wäre nett, wenn Ihr mir bei der Filmbeschaffung helfen wolltet. --Olaf Simons 14:38, 4 November 2007 (CET)

  • Time: Fridays 4-6 pm
  • Place: A10 1-121a
  • Contact: Olaf Simons

The legendary King Arthur, the mysteries around his sword Excalibur, the stories of his quasi democratic Round Table, Arthur's tragic struggle between love, treason and an all too powerful enemy invading the British Isles have inspired the European audience at least since the early 12th century. The wave of Provencal, Middle High German and Middle English versified Arthurian romances composed around 1200 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 quest for lost identities one could hope to find in the "dark ages". A rediscovery of "medieval" texts followed in which the Arthurian world offered the most interesting mythical images; it is today omnipresent as a cultural phenomenon 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 provided, yet the text which most effectively compiled the plots of the preceding romantic production.

Why was there an audience for this book at the "beginning" of the "Modern Period"? How did it 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 within the context of the 19th and 20th century renaissance of the Arthurian world? The course will offer a cultural history of the text and its fictional world.

Oct 26 2007: Introduction

Brainstorming. Who needs what? Who is going to conclude this course with a piece of written work? Introduction History of Malory's Book.

Nov 2, 2007: Reading into the (peculiar) text

Discussion of seminar topics - and advice to claim and specify them in the section bellow. We read into Le Morte Darthur, Caxton's preface and chapters 1-3. Concepts of history, aspects of fatalism. Also: Great vowel shift and Caxton's spelling.

Nov 9, 2007: Caxton's Book 1

Homework: Read Book one. Seminar discussion: Arthur's dubious birth, miracles, reading experiences. Also: comparison with Knights of the Round Table (1953), the movie we eventually watched.

Nov 16, 2007

Nov 23, 2007

Nov 30, 2007

Dec 7, 2007

Dec 14, 2007

Dec 21, 2007

Jan 11, 2007

Jan 18, 2008

Jan 25, 2008

Feb 1, 2008

Feb 6, 2008

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
  • Foreshadowings - a world of predetermination Katharina K. 21:31, 8 November 2007 (CET)
  • Family ties
  • Justice Johanna Ehrhardt 12:39, 9 November 2007 (CET) Johanna Ehrhardt
  • The use of repetitive patterns
  • Who has to solve the problem? - special and normal quests
  • Plot constructions
  • The renaissance of chivalry at the beginning of the modern era
  • Love and gender relations Julia Mudder 18:05, 9 November 2007 (CET)
  • Miracles and the Arthurian World
  • Politics
  • Marriage and fidelityFreya 09:06, 7 November 2007 (CET)
  • The legitimation of violence Inga 13:34, 9 November 2007 (CET)
  • The legitimation of power
  • Christianity--An add-on to the story or an inert part of it? Christian Schultz-BrummerNahl3372 18:05, 7 November 2007 (CET)
  • 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)
  • King Arthur and the Amadis (Commercializing of King Arthur) --Sebastian Henatsch 17:47, 10 November 2007 (CET)
  • The presence of the Arthurian world in the world of chap books
  • Individual ideas on Malory's King Arthur and modern versions and adaptations - be creative, propose topics and we will think about them

Texts

First of all: Read a German translation if you feel lost - I began my life with Middle English texts with a reading of Chaucer in German, which I then, a week later, combined with a second reading of the original. I read the original Chaucer aloud to get into the funny language (fill in your Plattdeutsch that helps), with the German text still in my mind I had little problems with the original and soon realised that I could from now onwards read such stuff without reading a German text before.

As to the English texts:

Malory's original manuscript is lost. For more than 400 years the edition Caxton had published in 1485 was the authoritative source. In 1934 the Winchester manuscript was discovered - a text between Malory's and Caxton's text. Traces of Caxton's ink have been found on the manuscript's leafs, Caxton knew the Winchester volume, he did, however, base his own edition on another, lost manuscript.

Modern scholarship has focused on the Winchester manuscript as the better text. The Norton Critical edition - it cost me 16 Euro a couple of months ago - is based on the Winchester manuscript; it includes, however, passages from Caxton's wherever his version is more detailed. The aim is a reconstruction of what might have been Malory's text, a text without omissions. The Norton edition is well commented and equipped with an extensive dictionary as well as a choice of critical articles. It does finally offer the most important sources Malory exploited. The Norton edition is my recommendation for all of you who like to work with a fully commented scientific edition.

I myself am more interested in Caxton's fist edition as published in 1485 and offered by EEBO - the text is, however, difficult to read:

To facilitate things I offer an html-edition of the same text (scroll down a bit to get beyond the reproduction of the first page):

My impression is that Caxton's is the easier text to read. The publisher focused on the plot, he lost some of the descriptions and he omitted some of the author's self referential remarks. Yet he structured his text and produced a straight forward version. My html-edition (also available as a word-file) is a simple transcript to be read with an additional list of difficult words to be found at Le Morte Darthur (1485):Dictionary - expand this list, wherever you miss words. I have contacted the Druckzentrum and they promised to provide a print-version of my Caxton html-edition by September. Contact me if you want to start your reading earlier and if you want to read the Caxton text. I will try to provide provisional copies in that case. We should also open Wiki-space at Le Morte Darthur (1485): Protagonists - for a who is who?

Excerpts/Summaries

Le Morte Darthur Book 1
Le Morte Darthur Book 3

Literature

  • Eugéne Vinaver, Malory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929).
  • Bennett, J. A. W. (ed.), Essays on Malory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963).
  • Moorman, Charles, The Book of King Arthur. The Unity of Malory’s Morte Darthur (University of Kentucky Press, 1965).
  • Matthews, William, The Ill-Famed Knight. A sceptical inquiry into the Identity of Thomas Malory (Berkeley/ Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1966).
  • Lambert, Mark, Malory. Style and Vision in Le Morte Darthur (New Haven/ London: Yale University Press, 1975).
  • Benson, Larry D., Malory’s Morte Darthur (Cambridge, Mass./ London: Harvard University Press, 1976). 289 pp.
  • Dillon, Bert, A Malory Handbook (Boston, Mass., G. K. Hall & Co., 1978).
  • Ihle, Sandra Ness, Malory’s Grail Quest. Invention and Adaptation in Medieval Romance (The University of Wisconsin Press, 1983).
  • Whitaker, Muriel, Arthur’s Kingdom of Adventure. The World of Malory’s Morte Darthur (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer/ Barnes and Noble, 1984).
  • Spisak, James W. (ed.), Studies in Malory (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications western Michigan University, 1985).
  • Jackson Parins, Marylyn, Malory the Cristical Heritage (London/ New York: Routledge, 1988).
  • McCarthy, Terence, Reading the Morte Darthur [= Arthurian Studies, XX] (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 1988), 187 pp. third edition with new title: An Introduction to Malory [= Arthurian Studies, XX] (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 1996), 176 pp.
  • Takamiya, Toshiyuki/ Brewer, Derek (eds.), Aspects of Malory (Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer/ Rowman & Littlefield, 1991).
  • Field, P. J. C., The Life an Times of Sir Thomas Malory [= Arthurian Studies, XXIX] (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 1993), 218 pp.
  • Archibald, Elizabeth/ Edwards A. S. G. (eds.), A Companion to Malory (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 1996), 252 pp. + Appendix
  • Kraemer, Alfred Robert, Mallory’s Grail Seekers and Fifteenth-Century English Hagiography (New York: Peter Lang, 1999). 105 pp. + Notes
  • Field, P. J. C., Malory: Texts and Sources [= Arthurian Studies, XL] (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1998), 313 pp.

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