Arthurian Journey Website

This terrible story, first in canon started by Sir Geoffrey of Monmouth, shows the valor of the Brits as survivors and as a strong people, fighting for their heritage and future. Arthur, within the story, serves as a force that unionizes but ends up failing. Geoffrey, writing a fictional story like a text one would find in a history textbook, tries to create an idealized version of a time, which ultimately reads exactly like something out of a history textbook. The film King Arthur, which primarily takes inspiration from Monmouth, did not do much better in its attempt to make Arthurian legend anything more than a history book full of grand battles. Chretien’s Arthurian Romances, which we read next, ended up being a lot more interesting. Stories like “The Knight of the Cart (Lancelot)” had comedic moments in spite of issues with gender and the chivalric triangle, and I never expected Sir Perceval to be such a frustrating character. The films we watched based off Chretien were very varied, such as an expressionistic take on Perceval (Perceval le Gallois) that reflected medieval art to grand set designs and famous actors, with First Knight, which took inspiration from, “The Knight of the Cart,” with Richard Gere and Sean Connery.

I didn’t expect to like Marie de France’s Lanval or the low-budget film Sir Lanval, but I found the addition of a character not in Chretien or Geoffrey interesting due to how he interrupted the triangles and relationships between the characters. The film Sir Lanval was especially fascinating due to expanding upon the story in different ways, such as insinuating King Arthur’s homosexuality and providing a more layered approach to Guinevere as a character. Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur was a difficult read for me, but I appreciated the attempt to tell the whole story of Arthur from his rise to his downfall, even if it did leave out some parts of his childhood. An adaptation of part of Morte Darthur was portrayed in Excalibur and Lancelot du Lac. Excalibur was a cheesy yet fairly enjoyable attempt at showing all of Malory’s story within a (long) movie. 

However, it still portrayed women as only victims or villains, so it didn’t do much to expand or change Arthurian legend, other than having Merlin as comic relief. Lancelot du Lac was a sometimes-difficult-to-pay-attention-to exploration of a scene Malory does not describe, as he moves on without an explanation. It follows the relationship between Guinevere and Lancelot, which eventually leads to Arthur and Camelot’s downfall. It also comments heavily on the senselessness of violence, which I enjoyed compared to the grand depictions of violence through battle as shown in films such as First Knight.

Arthur’s childhood was then explored in T.H.White’s novel The Once and Future King, in the first part of four, entitled The Sword in the Stone, and through the Disney film of the same name based on it. I really enjoyed White’s novel, as it explored Arthur’s character in a way that the more traditional older Arthurian legends did not, but the Disney film lacked any of the meaningful commentary or development of Arthurian legend, instead following a lackluster Disney formula.

My favorite film of the semester was Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Even though it really didn’t have any important female characters, I liked that part of the movie, because it meant that the women weren’t demonized like they were in other Arthurian media we had read, or were forced to undergo assault. It also had a lot of similarities to Twain’s novel, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, which tried to do a time-travel concept within Camelot and a whole new character, The Boss, but it still devalued the women of Arthurian legend, even though it is not without its comedic moments. The 1931 film adaptation, A Connecticut Yankee, adapts the story to fit the environment of the 1930s rather than Twain’s late 20th century point of view. Through this 1930s perspective, it again glorifies violence like other versions of Arthurian legend, by having tanks and tommy guns. The glorification of violence cheapens the story and ruins the character development and humor the film previously contained.

The Mists of Avalon, on the other hand, focused on the experiences of women in Arthurian literature. The exploration of Morgaine as not just a one-sided figure or a strict villain was intriguing because she is so typically characterized as an evil sorceress. It was difficult to read once I had learned of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s life and actions, though. The miniseries adaptation of the story still proved interesting despite questionable acting and CGI, but it still fails to fully explore the feminist and female-led possibilities of Arthurian legend.

In my midterm, I tried to explore Guinevere through the lens of Lanval and Malory, and tried to see why and how her character is so often both a victim and a villain. My final project, a short creative adaptation of part of the Grail quest, sought to usurp the heterosexual relationships that make up Arthurian literature, taking inspiration from Chretien and White. While the writing is of dubious quality at best, I think it still is a reflection of how I wish Arthurian legend would shift and adapt. Arthurian legend persists and continues to be told because of the grand connotations of the names of King Arthur and Camelot. As seen and read throughout this course, Arthurian legend is constantly being molded to fit authors’ and directors’ goals and viewpoints through time. This leads to some leaving out some parts (incest, rape, murder) in favor of the grand “ideals” of Camelot, but if Arthurian stories continue to be told, they need to do more than just adapt. We need to shift beyond modern adaptations, like The Kid Who Would Be King (although that film does have my favorite version of Merlin), and reevaluate Arthurian legend and how our society views it as a whole.