Arthurian Literature XXXI

The studies collected in this volume demonstrate the enduring vitality of the Arthurian legend in a wide range of places, times and media. Chretien’s Conte du Graal features first in a study of the poem’s place in its Anglo-Norman context, followed by four essays on Malory’s Morte Darthur. Two of these deal with the significance of wounds and wounding in Malory’s text, while the third explores the problematic aspects of sleep and the slepynge knight in that same romance. The fourth considers transformative female corpses as, quite literally, the embodiment of critical comment on the chivalric community in the Morte Darthur. There follow two studies of the Arthurian legend captured in material objects: the first concerns the early twelfth-century images on a marble column from the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, the second a twentieth-century tapestry created by Lady Trevelyan for the family home at Wallington Hall. The volume closes with an essay that brings us into the twenty-first century, with an assessment of Kaamelott, an irreverent French Pythonesque television series.

ElizabethArchibald is Professor of English Studies at Durham University, and Principal of St Cuthbert’s Society; David F. Johnson is Professor of English at Florida State University, Tallahassee.

Contributors: Karen Cherewatuk,Tara Foster, Joan Tasker Grimbert, Erin Kissick, Irit Ruth Kleiman, Megan Leitch, Roger Simpson, K.S. Whetter.