Sponsors
The Arthurian Legend in English Literature and Culture
Spring Semester 2007, M eve 5:30-8:20, 620:284-Seminar in Literature
The legendary figure of King Arthur was a Europe-wide phenomenon in the Middle Ages and has become a global phenomenon since the nineteenth century. Due to Arthur's British origins, Arthurian texts and images have come to constitute the largest secular narrative corpus in Great Britain and most of Britain's former colonies (including the United States of America), and the cultural capital invoked by his name extends to automobiles (Toyota's Avalon), bottled water (Camelot), flour (King Arthur Flour), and Las Vegas resort hotels (Excalibur). Vaguely following a cultural studies approach, this graduate seminar will chart a course (though not necessarily a historico-linear one) through some of the permutations of the Arthurian legend in English literature, film, politics, art, music, etc., to demonstrate how a medieval icon like Arthur has remained an essential element of a "usable past" in the construction of a vast variety of political, geographic, aesthetic, social, gender, race, and age identities. Some of the better known names/titles from the realm of English studies may include: Geoffrey of Monmouth (History of the Kings of Britain), Anon., (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight), Geoffrey Chaucer (Wife of Bath's Tale), Edmund Spenser (Fairie Queene), Thomas Malory (Morte Darthur), John Dryden/Henry Purcell (King Arthur, or the British Worthy), Micheal Drayton (Poly-Olbion), John Fielding (Tom Thumb, A Tragedy), Alfred Tennyson (Idylls of the King), Mark Twain (A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court), T. S. Eliot (The Waste Land), T.H. White (The Once and Future King) , John Steinbeck (The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights), Marion Zimmer Bradley (The Mists of Avalon), and "many a song and many a lecherous lay".
Students interested in this class should be ready to indulge in:
- staggering amounts of reading in diverse historical Englishes ("This storie is al so trewe, I undertake, ... As is the book of Launcelot of the Lake");
- pages and tomes of obfuscatory criticism (ever heard of "Lacancelot"?);
- a flawlessly edited graduate level research paper of about 25 pages;
- involvement in the organizing of a small on-campus conference and the presenting and critical discussion of one's research during that conference (pending funding, the best papers from such a conference might be considered for publication in an essay collection).
The rewards of engaging in this class will be:
- a publishable M.A. research paper or first chapter of one's M.A. thesis;
- astounding critical communications skills ("you know, like, -- kinda, you know, like"), honed, for example, during nerve-[w]racking mock M.A. oral exams on the topic of Arthuriana;
- illuminating insights into the discipline of English studies (why professor types profess they way they do...);
- invaluable experience on topics such as textual editing, authority & authorship, literary and cultural theories, historical semantics, and word study;
- a powerful letter of recommendation to PhD institutions or for job applications (only for "A" students).
Graduate student interested in the class should please contact the instructor directly (utz@uni.edu). Advanced undergraduate students should submit a portfolio containing a statement of purpose, writing sample (preferably a research paper), and information on their current GPA. All students signed up by the end of this semester will receive detailed information in case they should like to get started on their reading and research during the semester break.
..Class
..Description