Arthurian legends are the stories about King Arthur and his knights. While some of the stories take place before his birth, and some after his death, they all revolve around Arthur - hence the title of Arthurian.
But who is King Arthur? It has been debated as to whether he actually existed in history, or whether he is entirely made up. If Arthur did exist, his exploits have been drastically exaggerated in the tales told of him. Arthurian legend is called such because legends may or may not have had some historical basis.
The stories of King Arthur originated as early as the 6th century. The tales modern audiences are most familiar with come from a book from the late 15th century. In the hundreds of years between them huge changes were made to the original stories. Additional characters were added; those that already existed were hugely embellished. More drama became present, as did large quantities of romance and unrequited love. Magic grew in importance, and family trees became complicated as unbeknown incestuous relationships were formed (think Luke and Leia from the first Star Wars).
For a long time most of the stories of Arthurian legend were told in the form of poems. Perhaps the best known of these poems was the French Vulgate cycle (When I say poems, I mean as in epics like Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. These things were long.) That changed when a knight named Thomas Mallory was imprisoned. Mallory spent his confinement adapting the Vulgate cycle into a prose form for English audiences. Several French concepts, such as that of courtly love (a complicated concept that I'll explain more in a later post), were discarded or modified into something that Mallory thought made more sense. He called his book Le Morte d'Arthur - The Death of Arthur. (Spoilers! In the very title!)Le Morte d'Arthur was published in 1485. Most later adaptations of Arthurian legend stem from this book.
As I mentioned, Arthurian legend is full of drama and heartbreak. You start off knowing that the main character is going to die - of course there's drama! It focuses on Arthur and his various family and friends. Main characters include Lancelot, Merlin, Guinevere, Uther, Galahad, Morgan le Fay....the list goes on and on. We'll focus more on specific characters in later posts. Many of the cast of Arthurian legend show up in popular culture, ranging from the BBC TV show Merlin to Disney's Sword in the Stone to the many books by T. A. Barron.
Of course, if I'm going to talk about popular culture references to Arthurian legend, there are two things I must mention. Firstly, the TV show The Librarians. The Librarians is a spin-off of a movie series that I've watched and enjoyed for years - very cheesy, but very fun. The TV show has a great cast (Christian Kane, anyone?) and some rather lovely nods to Arthurian legend. Morgan le Fay shows up, and several characters have their own mysterious ties to Arthurian legend. I definitely recommend the show!
The other thing I want to mention is a movie called Quest for Camelot. Until recently, Quest for Camelot was about all I knew of Arthurian legend. I grew up watching the movie, and I absolutely adore it. It's one of those animated movies that I always think must be a Disney movie because it is so good, but isn't - like Anastasia! If you love knights, strong characters, musicals, dragons, and touching stories, I highly recommend you watch Quest for Camelot.
I'll be back next week to tell you about Uther, the father of King Arthur. See you guys then!
No comments:
Post a Comment