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English 435: Legends of King Arthur: Love, Romance, and the Sword in the Stone
Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30-10:45312E Hartnett Hall
Professor Robert E. Kibler, PhD., 229 Hartnett Hall West, 858 3876.
Arthur pulling the sword from the stone. French mss., circa 1290.
Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9-9:30, 3:15-4:00; Wed 5-6, Friday mornings in library carrel 217.
Contact Info: office: 858 3876; cell: 720 2716; e-mail: .
Web Site: (click “current syllabi and lecture materials.”)
Required Texts
Geoffrey of Monmouth. The History of the Kings of Britain
Chretien de Troyes. Arthurian Romances.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Thomas Malory. Le Morte d’Arthur.
T.H. White. The Once and Future King.
Mary Stewart. The Crystal Cave.
Course Overview.
From the 12th century onwards, when Lords and Ladies sat at court listening to conteurs, troubadors, and minnesingers tell long tales about King Arthur, wife Guinevere, and his round table of doughty knights, the world has been fascinated by Arthurian legend. And I mean the whole world. From its sixth century CE origins in Wales the legend spread and grew to the European Continent, then on to the lands of the middle eastern Saracen, their tall minarets vague in the morning mists as the mullahs still call the faithful to prayer. Arthur traveled by story there during the Crusades--then on yet further East and through time—so that now, Chinese versions of King Arthur’s tales of romance and chivalry can be downloaded from Google. What is particularly strange about Arthurian legend is that it is almost exclusively fabricated fantasy—yet fantasy so involved with life that it has its own geography, cast like a net over all of the western world as we know it, transforming known places into ones imbued with a complex interrelationship of characters and stories that take their sustenance if not their form from the ever changing web of Arthurian fictions itself. Fictions thus come to embody human truths and historic events within its own self-referential skein, making a fiction of life and at the same time, a palpable living human truth out of fiction.
In this course we will become familiar with Arthurian legend by reading along its main lines of development from the 12th century CE unto our own time. We will track the changes of landscape, relationships, and intention within the works, and get to know the chief characters in all of their fictional finery, bearing witness not only to how they change, but how they remain durably the same too. Along the way we will stop to investigate how the fictional world of Arthur mirrors and enhances the way the world quite literally understands such topics as weapons and arms, potions and spells, feudal relations, hunting, butchery, warfare, clans, chivalry, loyalty, treachery, honor, loss, and all kinds of versions of love. Be prepared to read a lot of stories, track changes and developments, and discuss characters and situations as if we are ourselves still very thick in the middle of them--because we are. Let our involvement in the Arthurian world be our first premise for the course then, guiding us as we go exploring the ongoing life and times of the regis quondam regisque futuri—the once and future king.
Course Evaluative Components
English 435 is primarily and reading and discussion class, so be prepared to respond to simple reading quizzes, assert literary truths based on evidence, and undertake brief examinations of two topics related to our readings. Here then is a breakdown of the grading scheme—since we have to have one:
- Simple reading quizzes25%
- Class discussion (2 grades)25%
- First short paper on topic of choice25%
- 2nd short analytic paper on topic of choice 25%
- *we will also see two movies and a short, Camelot,The Mists of Avalon, and Sword in the Stone. If you wish, you can write short reviews of these movies for extra credit. Each will replace a low quiz grade.
Note on Syllabus Plan
We will read and discuss what we can of Arthur and his people. Please consider the syllabus as a rough map, a plan that almost certainly will be altered, for one reason or another, according to our needs and desires. So please stay flexible. Further, English 435 is an upper level literature class, so I expect everyone to contribute to our understanding of what we have read. I too will be rereading much of our material for the first time in many years, so in many ways am your peer in the course. As the professor, I see it as my extra burden to introduce some historic sources important to our readings, to organize our work, and of necessity, to assign grades. Beyond this, we are all in the reading together.
Syllabus
Week I: August 27-29
Course intro, and introduction to early sources: Gildas Ruin of Britain, Nennius’s Historia Brittanum , the Annals of Cimbria, Nennius’, Wace and Layamon’s Brut, and the place of Monmouth, Chretien, the Welsh Mabinogian, Bedier, Malory, et alia. Dante’s Canto 4, Paulo and Francesca. Begin reading Monmouth, Parts 4,5,6, and 7.
Week 2: Sept 3-5
The Geography of Arthur, and Eleanor of Aquitaine’s “Courtly love.” Fin amor and Bon amor.Discuss Monmouth.
Chivalry and Feudalism.
Week 3: Sept 10-12
Finish Monmouth
Read Kilhwch and Olwen, from Welsh Mabinogian.
Begin Chretien, Eric and Enide
Week 4: Sept 17-19
Discuss E and E.
Read Knight of the Lion (Yvain)
Discuss Yvain.
Week 5: Sept 24-26
Lancelot, Knight of the Cart
Read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Discuss Lancelot.
Week 6: Oct 1-3
Discuss Gawain
Identify topic for short paper #1.
Read Malory’s Tale of King Arthur
Week 7: Oct 8-10
Discuss Malory’s Tale of King Arthur
ReadMalory’s Book of Sir Launcelot and Queen Gwynevere
Week 8: Oct 15-17
Discuss Lancelot and Gwynevere
Begin Le Morte D’Arthur.
Class participation grade #1
Week 9: Oct 22-24
Discuss Morte.
Week 10: Oct 29-31
Movie-Camelot
Week 11: Nov. 5-7
Discuss movie
Read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Week 12: Nov 12-14
Short paper #1 due and presentation.
Read T.H. White’s Once and Future King.
Identify topic for short paper #2
Week 13: Nov 19-21
Discuss OAFK
Week 14 Nov 26-28
Discuss OAFK
Movie: The Sword in the Stone
Week 15 Dec 3-5
Read Stewart’s Crystal Cave
Week 16
Discuss Crystal Cave
Editing of short paper #2