AJ14153 King Arthur and Arthurian Legend from the Earliest Times to Mark Twain

Faculty of Arts
Autumn 2016
Extent and Intensity
0/2/0. 2 credit(s) (plus 2 credits for an exam). Recommended Type of Completion: zk (examination). Other types of completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
Prof. Alfred Thomas (lecturer), PhDr. Filip Krajník, Ph.D. (deputy)
Guaranteed by
doc. PhDr. Jana Chamonikolasová, Ph.D.
Department of English and American Studies – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Tomáš Hanzálek
Supplier department: Department of English and American Studies – Faculty of Arts
Timetable
Mon 14. 11. to Fri 25. 11. each working day 10:50–12:25 VP
Prerequisites (in Czech)
AJ09999 Qualifying Examination || AJ01002 Practical English II
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
The capacity limit for the course is 7 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/7, only registered: 0/7, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/7
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
In the England of the late Middle Ages there were two Arthurian traditions. They existed side by side. One tradition represents King Arthur as a national hero, a battle-leader, a historical king, and narrates his rise to power, his flourishing, his conquests, and his fall and death. It is the native tradition, established as quasi-historical by Geoffrey of Monmouth, monumentally embodied in the great epic poem of the Brut by Layamon, dominant to a large extent in the romance-cum-epic of the Alliterative Morte Arthur, and present still in Malory. Arthur is the center of this body of narratives. The other Arthurian tradition in England is the one that came back into the country via France. Arthur has lost his central role as a national hero, and has faded into a shadowy figure, an ineffectual king, a mere husband, to accommodate the adulterous liaison of Lancelot and Guinevere. He is still the head of the order of the Round Table, but mostly Camelot is a place that individual knights go out from and come back to; and the king is there to wish them well when they leave and welcome them back when they return. The enormous influence of French literature in England during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when the aristocracy was largely French-speaking, means that this tradition was dominant. This other (French) tradition, which originated in the romances of Chrétien de Troyes and Marie de France, finds its insular English expression in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The love interest between the knight and a lady is also a major feature of the plot in this second Arthurian tradition. In the last few weeks of the course we will examine the 19th century revival of Arthurian legend in the works of Alfred Lord Tennyson and Mark Twain as well as the filmic treatment of Arthurian literature in the twentieth century.
Syllabus
  • Session 1: Beginnings: Latin and Welsh sources Session 2: Geoffrey of Monmouth and the “Invention” of King Arthur Session 3: The earliest vernacular versions: Wace and Layamon Session 4: Chrétien de Troyes and the Invention of Arthurian Romance Session 5: Marie de France Session 6: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Session 7: The Alliterative Morte Arthur Session 8: Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur Session 9: The Arthurian Sleep and Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King Session 10. Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court
Teaching methods
Discussions over assigned texts
Assessment methods
Full attendance; final essay
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
Study Materials
The course is taught only once.
Information on the per-term frequency of the course: Intensive course.
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