English 83

I’m sure this will be torn up just as all the Mark Twain skepticism was, but I can’t help but feel there’s something decidedly Excaliburish about Mists of Avalon, at least the 530 pages I’ve read so far. My unorganized rambling appears within.

I’m surprised that Mists of Avalon is the first book that has fate as a part of the story (that I can recall). I’m referring specifically to the first few pages where Igraine is destined to give birth to Arthur with Uther. I always imagined the Arthurian legend being a direct result of destiny or fate. These [...]

Film buff here chiming in on the excellent double-feature. I feel like I just ate a communion wafer followed by an overstuffed jelly donut – you can guess which film I watched first.
Robert Bresson’s minimalist Lancelot du Lac strikes me as simultaneously the most thematically Christian and most stylistically modern Arthurian vision we’ve encountered. [...]

This musing is neither substantive nor particularly well-thought out, but today’s presentation and the resulting discussion of modern day forms of chivalry made me wonder about the current state of chivalry. The consensus seemed to be that class-based chivalry was dead and buried. I’m not so sure, however.
Admittedly the Victorian sort of imperialist/colonialist idea of [...]

I found The Coming of Arthur to be rather postmodern at points because of its use of multiple people’s views and opinions about King Arthur’s birth and conception, as well as the structure of placing the story of his conception and birth within another story. The reader is left to contemplate each telling and to [...]

Honestly, I must say, I have not completed this book, but even so I have seen a ton of irony in it so far. The first thing that struck me as hilarious is the fact that Hank, a low-class worker of relatively-modern times can go back to Arthurian Britain and almost be the king.
Later, [...]

I am sure we have all read some of Twain’s other works, many of which are American classics.  In this semester, we have all experienced older Arthurian traditions.  I would have to say that I think Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is inferior to both of these sets of things.  It is stylistically [...]

Does anyone know if the groups for peer conferencing have been posted yet (and if so, where)? Thanks!

As the epitomy of what a knight should be Galahad is respected everywhere he goes. He completes adventures that no one else can manage just by simply being himself (i.e. the fiery tomb and the sword). Then, he achieves ultimate success by completing the quest for the grail. Once he is revered [...]

Hey everybody. A couple of weeks ago in class I compared the vulgate Lancelot to King David of biblical tradition. At first glance the characters are very similar and share important dramatic themes, for instance Lancelot and David both commit adultery and play important roles in the demise or destruction of close friends (David with [...]

Once again wary of reading too anachronistically, I can’t help but feel there’s something unsettling about a mass murderer charming his way into a knighthood by finding Jesus and throwing a swank dinner party.  After epics and romances, only now, in this humble poem, do the politics of largess seem truly sinister.  Just where does [...]

Unable to get the Geraldine Heng article to load, I frivolously summon the specter of queer theory anachronism: Is Gawain gay? The answer being “no,” what does his rejection of “courteous” adultery suggest about the English morality on display here?
From my Tolkien translation:
The lady in lovely guise came laughing sweetly, / bent down o’er his [...]

Does anyone know which text the Carl of Carlisle is in?

Was it just me or did it feel like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in comparison to the other things that we have been reading, was incredibly uneventful? The lesson learned by Gawain is really essential to understanding how the knights of the Round Table were supposed to behave. Is it because I’ve read it [...]

So I know we already talked a little about this in class, but I still don’t really understand why it was okay for Gahmuret to just completely ditch Belacane. I know she isn’t baptized, but he tells her “Madam, you can still win me, if you will be baptized” (39). Her instantaneous reply is:
How soon [...]

So I don’t know exactly what went on between Guinevere and Lancelot in “King Arthur’s Death,” because I didn’t read it. I read “The Death of King Arthur” by Thomas Malory and thought it was the same thing. My bad.
Anyway, in Malory’s version I thought it was really disconcerting how Lancelot and Guinevere admitted they [...]

I know that Lancelot’s love for Guinevere was great, but how arrogant does he have to be to not only disregard even the advice of a closest brother, but take not consider how suspiciously the king treats him? He could not even wait a short amount of time for a little of the suspicion to [...]

While reading The Death of King Arthur, I was extremely surprised by the way in which the people treat Guinevere and the inconsistencies which arise. First, there is no one to defend her when everyone believes that she has poisoned a knight. Then, Lancelot saves her, and everything is ok. When Agravain [...]

One thing that really irked me about this tale was its lack of any coherent plot structure. Yvain is always getting sidetracked. He vows to save Lunete from a bloodthirsty seneschal, but then Chretien makes him kill a giant before he can fulfill his promise to her. He agrees to help restore a lady’s inheritance [...]

At the very beginning of “The Knight of the Cart” (Lancelot) Chretien introduces his reason for writting his story (lns 1-31). The note on this section says that both the introduction and the rest of the story can be read as being serious or as being meant to be humorous and exaggerated. I think that [...]