Bøger i Arthurian Studies serien

The first in-depth study of Arthurian places in late medieval and early modern England and Wales.

An interdisciplinary and trans-historical investigation of the representation of ethics in Arthurian Literature.

An examination of the numerous adaptations of Malory's Morte Darthur for children in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.From the time when the writer J.T. Knowles first adapted Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur for a juvenile audience in 1862, there has been a strong connection between children and the Arthurian legend. Between 1862 and 1980, numerous adaptations of the Morte were produced for a young audience in Britain and America. They participated in cultural dialogues relating to the medieval, literary heritage, masculine development, risk, adventure and mental health through their reworking of the narrative. Covering texts by J.T. Knowles, Sidney Lanier, Howard Pyle, T.H. White, Roger Lancelyn Green, Alice Hadfield, John Steinbeck and Susan Cooper, among others, this volume explores how books for children frequently become books about children, and consequently books about the contiguity and separation of the adult and the child. Against the backdrop of Victorian medievalism, imperialism, the rise of child psychology and two world wars, the diverse ways in which Malory's text has been altered with a child reader in mind reveals changing ideas regarding the relevance of King Arthur, and the complex relationship between authors and their imagined juvenile readers. It reveals the profoundly fantasised figures behind literary representations of childhood, and the ways in which Malory's timeless tale, and the figure of King Arthur, have inspiredand shaped these fantasies. Dr ELLY MCCAUSLAND is Senior Lecturer in British and American literature at the University of Oslo.

The early "e;publishing industry"e; examined through the prism of the Grail legend.The Grail is one of the most enduring literary motifs in publishing history. In spite of an ever-changing world, the reading public has maintained a fascination for this enigmatic object, as well as the various adventures and characters associated with it. But the nature and reception of the Grail have not remained static. Thanks to the fact that the first known author of a Grail story, Chretien de Troyes, died c.1180-90 before completing his tale and revealing the meaning of the Grail, authors and publishers across history have reimagined, reinterpreted and re-packaged Grail literature so as to appeal to the developing tastes and interests of their target audiences. This bookanalyses the developing publication practices associated with French Grail literature in medieval and Renaissance France. Arguing for pre-print book production as constituting an early incarnation of a publishing trade, it discusses such matters as the disclosure of authorship and patronage, and the writing and formatting of blurbs, as well as tactics of compilation and production techniques that bear evidence of common commercial motivations between pre-and post-print publication. The distinctive investigation of manuscript and early-print evidence brings medieval and early-modern publishers and their concepts of both product and market into focus. Leah Tether is Reader in Medieval Literature and Digital Cultures, and Co-Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Bristol. She is the author of The Continuations of Chretien's Perceval: Content and Construction, Extensionand Ending (D.S. Brewer, 2012).

By his contemporaries, Raoul de Houdenc was 'mentioned in the same breath as Chretien de Troyes as one of the masters of French poetry' (Keith Busby, The New Arthurian Encyclopaedia).The writers of later romances deemed Raoul's work worthy of memory on a par with the Prose Lancelot, and placed Raoul and Chretien on the same level in terms of authority.Raoul de Houdenc was a major and innovative figure in 13th-century French literature. His surviving works are unusually diverse: they include an impassioned tract about the values of chivalry (The Romance of the Wings), two superbly crafted Arthurian romances (Meraugis of Portlesguez and The Avenging of Raguidel), and a swingeing polemic against declining standards especially among the bourgeoisie (The Burgess's Burgeoning Blight). And with his hugely influential satire The Dream of Hell he was the very first to compose allegory in the vernacular, mastering to perfection the art of parody and the unexpected.After a long period of neglect Raoul is finally receiving the scholarly attention he deserves, and this is the first translation into English of his complete surviving works.The Avenging of Raguidel 'must surely be counted as one of the most fascinating and innovative of the French Gawain romances' - Norris J. Lacy.

The original version of one of the greatest and most potent of medieval legends.Chretien de Troyes' Perceval is the most important single Arthurian romance. It contains the very first mention of the mysterious grail, later to become the Holy Grail and the focal point of the spiritual quest of the knights of Arthur's court. Chretien left the poem unfinished, but the extraordinary and intriguing theme of the Grail was too good to leave, and other poets continued and eventually completed it. This is the only English translation to include selections from the three continuations and from the work of Gerbert de Montreuil, making the romance a coherent whole, and following through Chretien's essential theme of the making of a knight, in both worldlyand spiritual terms. It is thus the most complete account available in English of the essential Arthurian romance, the origin of the Grail legend.

Wolfram's Parzival continues to inspire and influence, in modern times works as diverse as Wagner's Parsifal and Lohengrin, Franz Kafka's The Castle, Terry Gilliam's film The Fisher King, and Umberto Eco's Baudolino.Vast in its scope, incomparably dense in its imagery, Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival ranks alongside Dante's Divine Comedy as one of the foremost narrative works to emerge from medieval Europe. This book is a newtranslation of Parzival, together with the fragments of the Titurel, an elegiac offshoot of Parzival, and the nine love-songs attributed to Wolfram. Parzival is the greatest of the medieval Grail romances. In its depth and complexity of characterisation this work of the early thirteenth century anticipates the modern novel. It encompasses deeds of chivalry, tournaments and sieges, courtly love, and other erotic undertakings, but also sin and penance, and a deeply moving study in depression. Centre stage are the Grail Castle and Arthur's Round Table, but the pagan world of the Orient also is also reflected. Parzival has inspired and influenced works as diverse as Wagner's Parsifal and Lohengrin, Franz Kafka's The Castle, Terry Gilliam's film The Fisher King, and Umberto Eco's Baudolino. Cyril Edwards' thoughtful translation vividlyconveys the power of this complex, wide-ranging medieval masterpiece. CYRIL EDWARDS is a lecturer in German at St Peter's College and Research Fellow of the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford. He is the author of The Beginnings of German Literature (Camden House, 2002), and numerous articles on the medieval lyric and Old High German. His previous translations include Hans Sachs's "e;Song of the Nose"e; for the King's Singers, Bernhard Maier's Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture (Boydell & Brewer, 1997) and The Medieval Housebook (Prestel-Verlag, 1997).

A reconsideration of Arthurian compilations in the late middle ages, looking at the complex ways in which they reshape their material for new audiences.The late-medieval adaptions and compilations of the Arthurian story are a European phenomenon that has sparked both mystification and controversy. Often dismissed as nostalgic recreations that attempt to halt the literary tide, these ambitious projects saw adaptors from across Western Europe combining a vast array of prose and verse sources from different languages into encyclopedic narrative chronologies of King Arthur and his court. Ranging from ornate verse adaptations to heavily condensed prose works, the resulting texts reflect a process of translating, cutting and arranging Arthurian material into new literary incarnations, which nonetheless retain recognisable versions of the Arthurian story. This study re-evaluates Malory's Morte Darthur and four broadly contemporary European romance collections, including Jean Gonnot's French BN.fr.112 manuscript, Ulrich Fuetrer's German Buch der Abenteuer, the Dutch Lancelot Compilation, and the Italian Tavola Ritonda, in the context of this adaptive process. In doing so, it investigates how the adaptors respond to the shared structural and stylistic challenges of incorporating new material into the well-known story of King Arthur and comes to intriguing conclusions about the ways in which the narrative demands of late Arthurian adaptations invited authors to populate the Arthuriancourt with new and more complex protagonists. Miriam Edlich-Muth currently teaches Old and Middle English language and literature at the University of Cambridge.

The intricate structure and the many different narrative threads of the Prose Lancelot are here skilfully analysed, showing them to be a major new development in literary technique.

A dramatic archaeological find at Windsor Castle reveals Edward III's 'House of the Round Table', designed to show off Edward's power and prestige at a crucial moment in his attempts to lay claim to the throne of France.

A highly readable version of this remarkable and largely unexplored work.

`Provides an excellent one-volume guide to the works of the anonymous Gawain-poet.' CHOICE

An examination of the rubricated letters in the Morte makes a convincing case for the design being by Malory himself.

First full-length study in English of the Middle Dutch Lancelot-Compilation, of great significance for Arthurian studies.

Latest update of essential Arthurian resource.

Wide-ranging survey of a neglected but significant early German version of the Lancelot legend.

A study of the structure of the Morte, focusing on Malory's adaptation, as both redactor and translator, of traditional Arthurian material.

Malory's world explored, from the battle of Towton to the "grete bokes" of chivalric material composd for aristocratic families.

Seminal essays on one of the most crucial issues in Arthurian studies.

Study exploring the treatment of the Arthurian legends by the French Romantic movement.

Reflects a tradition that reaches back to the beginnings of Arthurian romance in the early 12th century. This title is close in style and sometimes in content to the work of Chretien de Troyes.

New study of Malory's sources reveals much about how the work was created and about Malory himself.

The idea of the quest, crucial to Arthurian literature, investigated in texts, manuscripts, and film.

Index of themes in 12c French Arthurian verse romances from literary themes to everyday motifs.

New readings of the Morte Darthur place both book and author within the historical and cultural context of fifteenth-century England.