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Instructors: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Rainer Emig
Event type:
Lecture
Displayed in timetable as:
05.874.124
Hours per week:
2
Credits:
2,0
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | -
Requirements / organisational issues:
The myth of King Arthur runs through British culture like a red thread. While it is quite certain that it is not based on one historical person, it responds to political, ethnic and cultural anxieties and desires at crucial times of change - from the 'invasion' of the Anglo-Saxons and the subsequent creation of the 'Celtic fringes' via the Norman Conquest to much later challenges, such as Britain's Empire, its rise and eventual demise. Even today's more problematic self-image of Britain and its role in a globalised world can be mirrored in so-called Arthurian fiction and its modern media equivalents.
The lecture will start with the emergence of the Arthurian myth out of a conglomerate of Celtic, Continental, and English sources. It will discuss its early and prominent Medieval variants and their cultural importance. But it will also move towards later manifestations, such as the 19th-century revival of the supposedly Medieval and texts such as the Poet Laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King. In the second half of the 19th and the 20th century, Arthurian themes move into popular genres, such as adolescent and fantasy literature. But this does not mean that they give up their ideological tasks. In the late 20th century, then, revisionary texts appear, such as Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, a feminist re-telling of the story. The lecture will conclude with recent cinematic and TV versions of the story in various Arthurian films and TV series such as Merlin. Students should expect texts from all periods, some of them in difficult forms and language, historical background and theoretical questions throughout.
Introductory Reading:
Richard White, ed. (1997): King Arthur in Legend and History. London: Dent. Print.
Elizabeth S. Sklar, ed. (2002): King Arthur in Popular Culture. Jefferson, NC et al.: McFarland. Print.
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