2 thoughts on “King Arthur”

1. clàudia 07/03/2010 at 20:25

   King Arthur is a legendary British leader who, according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early sixth century. The details of Arthur’s story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and his historical existence is debated and disputed by modern historians.[2] The sparse historical background of Arthur is gleaned from various sources, including the Annales Cambriae, the Historia Brittonum, and the writings of Gildas. Arthur’s name also occurs in early poetic sources such as Y Gododdin.[3]

   The legendary Arthur developed as a figure of international interest largely through the popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s fanciful and imaginative 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain).[4] However, some Welsh and Breton tales and poems relating the story of Arthur date from earlier than this work; in these works, Arthur appears either as a great warrior defending Britain from human and supernatural enemies or as a magical figure of folklore, sometimes associated with the Welsh Otherworld, Annwn.[5] How much of Geoffrey’s Historia (completed in 1138) was adapted from such earlier sources, rather than invented by Geoffrey himself, is unknown.

   Although the themes, events and characters of the Arthurian legend varied widely from text to text, and there is no one canonical version, Geoffrey’s version of events often served as the starting point for later stories. Geoffrey depicted Arthur as a king of Britain who defeated the Saxons and established an empire over Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Norway and Gaul. In fact, many elements and incidents that are now an integral part of the Arthurian story appear in Geoffrey’s Historia, including Arthur’s father Uther Pendragon, the wizard Merlin, the sword Excalibur, Arthur’s birth at Tintagel, his final battle against Mordred at Camlann and final rest in Avalon. The 12th-century French writer Chrétien de Troyes, who added Lancelot and the Holy Grail to the story, began the genre of Arthurian romance that became a significant strand of medieval literature. In these French stories, the narrative focus often shifts from King Arthur himself to other characters, such as various Knights of the Round Table. Arthurian literature thrived during the Middle Ages but waned in the centuries that followed until it experienced a major resurgence in the 19th century. In the 21st century, the legend lives on, not only in literature but also in adaptations for theatre, film, television, comics and other media.

   Geoffrey of Monmouth

   Geoffrey was probably born some time between 1100 and 1110[1] in Wales or the Welsh Marches. He must have reached the age of majority by 1129, when he is recorded as witnessing a charter. In his Historia, Geoffrey refers to himself as Galfridus Monumetensis, “Geoffrey of Monmouth”, which indicates a significant connection to Monmouth, Wales, and which may refer to his birthplace.[2] Geoffrey’s works attest to some acquaintance with the place-names of the region.[2] To contemporaries, Geoffrey was known as Galfridus Artur(us) or variants thereof.[2][1] The “Arthur” in these versions of his name may indicate the name of his father, or a nickname based on Geoffrey’s scholarly interests.[1] Earlier scholars assumed that Geoffrey was Welsh or at least spoke Welsh,[1] However, it is now recognised that there is no real evidence that Geoffrey was of either Welsh or Cambro-Norman descent, unlike for instance, Gerald of Wales.[2] Geoffrey’s knowledge of the Welsh language appears to have been slight.[1] He is likely to have sprung from the same French-speaking elite of the Welsh border country as the writers Gerald of Wales and Walter Map, and Robert, Earl of Gloucester, to whom Geoffrey dedicated versions of his Historia Regum Britanniae.[1] It has been argued, by Frank Stenton among others, that Geoffrey’s parents may have been among the many Bretons who took part in William I’s Conquest and settled in the southeast of Wales.[2] Monmouth had been in the hands of Breton lords since 1075[2] or 1086[1] and the names Galfridus and Arthur (if interpreted as a patronymic) were more common among the Bretons than the Welsh.[2]

   He may have served for a while in a Benedictine priory in Monmouth.[3] However, most of his adult life appears to have been spent outside Wales. Between 1129 and 1151 his name appears on six charters in the Oxford area, sometimes styled magister (“teacher”).[1] He was probably a secular Augustinian canon of St. George’s college. Oxford castle,[3] All the charters signed by Geoffrey are also signed by Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, also a canon at that church. Another frequent co-signatory is Ralph of Monmouth, a canon of Lincoln.[1]

   On 21 February 1152 Archbishop Theobald consecrated Geoffrey as bishop of St Asaph, having ordained him a priest 10 days before. “There is no evidence that he ever visited his see,” writes Lewis Thorpe, “and indeed the wars of Owain Gwynedd make this most unlikely.”[4] He appears to have died between 25 December 1154 and 24 December 1155, when his apparent successor, Richard, took office.[1]
   [edit] Writings

   Geoffrey wrote several works of interest, all in Latin, the language of learning and literature in Europe during the medieval period. The earliest one to appear was probably the Prophetiae Merlini (Prophecies of Merlin), which he wrote at some point before 1135, and which appears both independently and incorporated into the Historia Regum Britanniae. It consists of a series of obscure prophetic utterances attributed to Merlin, which Geoffrey claimed to have translated from an unspecified language. In this work Geoffrey drew from the established Welsh tradition of prophetic writing attributed to the sage Myrddin, though his knowledge of Myrddin’s story at this stage in his career appears to have been slight.[5] Many of its prophesies referring to historical and political events up to Geoffrey’s lifetime can be identified – for example, the sinking of the White Ship in 1120, when William Adelin, son of Henry I, died.[1]

   Geoffrey introduced the spelling “Merlin”, derived from the Welsh “Myrddin”. The Welsh scholar Rachel Bromwich observed that this “change from medial dd > l is curious. It was explained by Gaston Paris as caused by the undesirable associations of the French word merde”.[6] The first work about this legendary prophet in a language other than Welsh, it was widely read — and believed — much as the prophecies of Nostradamus were centuries later; John Jay Parry and Robert Caldwell note that the Prophetiae Merlini “were taken most seriously, even by the learned and worldly wise, in many nations”, and list examples of this credulity as late as 1445.[7]

   His major work was the Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), the work best known to modern readers. It relates the purported mythical history of Britain, from its first settlement by Brutus, a descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas, to the death of Cadwallader in the seventh century, taking in Julius Caesar’s invasions of Britain, two kings, Leir and Cymbeline, later immortalized by William Shakespeare, and one of the earliest developed narratives of King Arthur.

   Geoffrey claims in his dedication that the book is a translation of an “ancient book in the British language that told in orderly fashion the deeds of all the kings of Britain”, given to him by Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford. Contemporary historians have dismissed this claim.[8] It is, however, likely that the Archdeacon furnished Geoffrey with some materials in the Welsh language that helped inspire his work, as Geoffrey’s position and acquaintance with the Archdeacon would not have afforded him the luxury of fabricating such a claim outright.[9] Much of it is based on the Historia Britonum, a 9th century Welsh-Latin historical compilation, Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum and Gildas’s sixth-century polemic De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, expanded with material from Bardic oral tradition, genealogical tracts, and embellished by Geoffrey’s own imagination.[10]

   Historia Regum Britanniae is now acknowledged as a literary work of national myth containing little reliable history. This has since led many modern scholars to agree with William of Newburgh, who wrote around 1190 that “it is quite clear that everything this man wrote about Arthur and his successors, or indeed about his predecessors from Vortigern onwards, was made up, partly by himself and partly by others, either from an inordinate love of lying, or for the sake of pleasing the Britons.”[11] Other contemporaries were similarly unconvinced by Geoffrey’s “History”. For example, Giraldus Cambrensis recounts the experience of a man possessed by demons: “If the evil spirits oppressed him too much, the Gospel of St John was placed on his bosom, when, like birds, they immediately vanished; but when the book was removed, and the History of the Britons by ‘Geoffrey Arthur’ (as Geoffrey named himself) was substituted in its place, they instantly reappeared in greater numbers, and remained a longer time than usual on his body and on the book.”[12]

   However, his major work was widely disseminated across the whole of Medieval Western Europe (Acton Griscom listed 186 extant manuscripts in 1929, and others have been identified since)[13] and it enjoyed a significant afterlife in a variety of forms, including translations/adaptations such as the Anglo-Norman Roman de Brut of Wace, the Middle English Brut of Layamon, and several anonymous Middle Welsh versions known as Brut y Brenhinedd (“Brut of the kings”).[14] where it was generally accepted as a true account.

   Furthermore, his structuring and reshaping of the Merlin and Arthur myths engendered the vast popularity of Merlin and Arthur myths in later literature, a popularity that lasts to this day; he is generally viewed by scholars as the major establisher of the Arthurian canon.[15] The Historia’s effect on the legend of King Arthur was so vast that Arthurian works have been categorized as “pre-” or “post-Galfridian” depending on whether or not they were influenced by him.

   The third work attributed to Geoffrey is another hexameter poem Vita Merlini (“Life of Merlin”). The Vita is based much more closely on traditional material about Merlin than are the other works; here he is known as Merlin of the Woods (Merlinus Sylvestris) or Scottish Merlin (Merlinus Caledonius), and is portrayed an old man living as a crazed and grief-stricken outcast in the forest. The story is set long after the timeframe of Historia’s Merlin, but the author tries to synchronize the works with references to the mad prophet’s previous dealings with Vortigern and Arthur. The Vita did not circulate widely, and the attribution to Geoffrey appears in only one late 13th century manuscript, but contains recognisably Galfridian elements in its construction and content, and most critics are content to recognise it as his.[1]

   Chrétien de Troyes

   Chrétien de Troyes (pronounced /ˈkrɛtˌjæn dəˈtrɔɪ/ in English[citation needed]) was a French poet and trouvère who flourished in the late 12th century. Little is known of his life, but he seems to have been from Troyes, or at least intimately connected with it, and between 1160 and 1172 he served at the court of his patroness Marie of France, Countess of Champagne, daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine, perhaps as herald-at-arms (as Gaston Paris speculated).[1] His work on Arthurian subjects represents some of the best regarded of medieval literature. Chrétien de Troyes is generally considered as the first identified major French Language novelist.

   Works

   Chrétien’s works include five major poems in rhyming eight-syllable couplets. Four of these are complete; Erec and Enide (c. 1170); Cligès (c. 1176), and Yvain, the Knight of the Lion and Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, both written simultaneously between 1177 and 1181. Chrétien’s final romance was Perceval, the Story of the Grail, written between 1181 and 1190, but left unfinished, though some scholars have disputed this. It is dedicated to Philip, Count of Flanders, to whom Chrétien may have been attached in his last years. He finished only 9,000 lines of the work, but four successors of varying talents added 54,000 additional lines in what are known as the Four Continuations. Similarly, the last thousand lines of Lancelot were written by Godefroi de Leigni, apparently by arrangement with Chrétien. In the case of Perceval, one continuer says the poet’s death prevented him from completing the work, in the case of Lancelot, no reason is given. This has not stopped speculation that Chrétien did not approve of Lancelot’s adulterous subject.

   To him are also attributed two lesser works: the pious romance Guillaume d’Angleterre (an attribution that is no longer believed), and Philomela, the only one of his four poems based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses that has survived. Chrétien names his treatments of Ovid in the introduction to Cligès, where he also mentions his work about King Mark and Iseult. The latter is presumably related to the Tristan and Iseult legend, though it is interesting that Tristan is not named.
   [edit] Sources

   The immediate and specific source for his romances is of deep interest to the student; unfortunately, he has left us in the dark as to what these were. He speaks in the vaguest way of the materials he used, and though Celtic influence is easily detectable in the stories, there is no direct evidence that he had Celtic written sources. Geoffrey of Monmouth or Wace might have supplied some of the names, but neither author mentioned Erec, Lancelot, Gornemant and many others who play an important role in Chrétien’s narratives. One is forced to guess about Latin or French literary originals which are now lost, or upon continental lore that goes back to a Celtic source. It is the same problem that faces the student in the case of Béroul, an Anglo-Norman who wrote about 1150. However, Chrétien found his sources immediately at hand, without much understanding of its primitive spirit, but appreciating it as a setting for the ideal society dreamed of, although not realized, in his own day. And Chrétien’s five romances together form the most complete expression from a single author of the ideals of French chivalry. Though as of yet there has been little critical attention paid to the subject, it is not inaccurate to say that Chrétien was influenced by the changing face of secular and canonical law in the twelfth century. This is particularly relevant for his Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart which makes repeated use of the customary law prevalent in Chrétien’s day. [2]
   [edit] Influence

   Chrétien’s writing was very popular, as evidenced by the high number of surviving copies of his romances and their many adaptations into other languages. Three of Middle High German literature’s finest examples, Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival and Hartmann von Aue’s Erec and Iwein, were based on Perceval, Erec, and Yvain; the Three Welsh Romances associated with the Mabinogion, Peredur, son of Efrawg, Geraint and Enid, and Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain are derived from the same trio. Especially in the case of Peredur, however, the connection between the Welsh romances and their source is probably not direct, and has never been satisfactorily delineated. Chrétien also has the distinction of being the first writer to mention the Holy Grail (Perceval) and the love affair between Queen Guinevere and Lancelot (Lancelot), subjects of household recognition even today.

   There is a specific Latin influence in Chrétien’s romances the likes of which (The Iliad, The Aeneid, Metamorphoses) were “translated into the Old French vernacular during the 1150s”.[3] Foster Guyer argues that specifically Yvain, the Knight of the Lion contains definite Ovidian influence:

   Yvain was filled with grief and showed the Ovidian love symptoms of weeping and sighing so bitterly that he could scarcely speak. He declared that he would never stay away a full year. Using words like those of Leander in the seventeenth of Ovid’s Epistles he said: ‘If only I had the wings of a dove/to fly back to you at will/Manyand many a time I would come’.[citation needed]

   [edit] Creator of the modern novel

   Chrétien has been termed “the inventor of the modern novel” and Karl Uitti argues:

   With [Chrétien’s work] a new era opens in the history of European story telling…this poem reinvents the genre we call narrative romance; in some important respects it also initiates the vernacular novel.[3]

   The main quality of the above-mentioned Celtic influences was that of a sort of incompleteness. A “story” could be anything from a single battle scene, to a prologue, to a minimally cohesive tale with little to no chronological layout. Uitti argues that Yvain is Chrétien’s “most carefully contrived romance… It has a beginning, a middle, and an end: we are in no doubt that Yvain’s story is over”.[3] This very method of having a three definite parts including the build in the middle leading to the climax of the story is in large part why Chrétien is seen to be a writer of novels six centuries before novels existed.
2. Marta Ferrer Brunet 28/02/2010 at 17:28

   MERLIN, who helps a lot a King Arthur, is a magician.
   TINTAGEL, where Arthur was born, is a city on the Atlantic coast of Cornualha.
   AVALON, where the King Arthur died, is a legendary island of Celtic mythology.
   EXCALIBUR, which is the legendary sword of King Arthur, was stuck in a rock.
   THE LADY OF THE LAKE is the storyteller and the person who helps the King Arthur.
   CAMELOT is the legendary kingdom of King Arthur where he won many battles.
   MORGANA, who is half sister of King Arthur, is a mytological fairy.
   MORDRED, who is King Arthur’s enemy, is the son of Morgana.
   UTHER PENDRAGON, who is the King of England, is the Arthur’s real father.
   GUINEVERE, who is the beautiful wife of King Arthur, really loves sir Lancelot.
   SIR LANCELOT, who is a Arthur’s best friend, is a knight of the Round Table.
   SIR ECTOR, who is a foster father of Arthur, has a son called Kay.