350:535

Index # - 13308

Distribution Requirement:  A1

Tuesday – 9:50 a.m.

MU 207

Christine Chism

Strange Origins: Arthur and the Medieval Matter of Britain

King Arthur is a queer origin for British nationalist history: situated at the borderzones between English and Celtic legendry, operating between clannish, feudal, and state-centralized polities, staging the courtly maneuverings of men and women to fantasize and investigate the gender inflections of power, alliance, and intercession.  The matter of Britain is also a wonderfully rich playing ground for investigating the cultural projects of history and fantasy and medieval ways of thinking about them: history as social work and history as pleasure.  This class explores how medieval writers negotiate English political identity, sovereignty, court culture, gender, genre, and enjoyment through the figure of Arthur.  Geoffrey of Monmouth, writing from the Welsh and English borders, establishes a bifurcated Arthurian tradition with his History of the Kings of Britain, and its later, even more interrogatory intertext, The Life of Merlin, and subsequent writers in England and on the Continent immediately turn the legendary figure to their own uses.  We will investigate the complex rivalry between English and French Arthurian traditions, through Chretien de Troyes's Yvain, and Knight of the Cart, Wace's and Layamon's Bruts, and Marie de France's Lanval.  Then we will turn towards the complexities of later English Arthurian texts such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the alliterative Morte Arthure, and the works of Thomas Malory.  Secondary readings may include Michelle Warren, Patricia Clare Ingham, L. O. Aranye Fradenburg, Susan Crane, Dorsey Armstrong, Geraldine Heng, and Kenneth Hodges.

Requirements: two conference-length papers, a class presentation, and weekly 1-2 pp. response papers.

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