Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Feminist Origins of the Arthurian Legend (original) (raw)

The Role of Women in the Arthurian Material

To Maureen Fries, women in Arthurian legends are "contrapuntal rather than independent" of the male characters 1 . Though the Arthurian world depicts a male-dominated society, this universe would not function without the very powerful women in key positions. In this essay, the depiction of women in Malory's Morte Darthur is compared to works both predating and following it. Lynett and Lyonesse's roles in the "Tale of Gareth" are compared to that of Olwen in the earlier Welsh version of the Arthurian legend. Malory's original depiction of Elaine of Ascolat is presented as a radically different, individual character that points forward to later literary traditions. Finally, it is argued that the presentation of women in earlier Arthurian legends is in some respect less restrictive than in the 1983 feminist re-working of the legend, Marion Zimmer-Bradley's Mists of Avalon. This modern version belittles and reduces the significance of women in the male-dominated Arthurian world despite claims to the opposite. The dominant characters of Guinevere and Morgan le Fay 2 are used to exemplify this claim. In the conclusion, the need to read texts in their historical and cultural context is underlined and the significance of re-imaginings as a mirror of contemporary cultural mores is highlighted. While this paper agrees that Arthurian women may be seen as contrapuntal, it also highlights these women's role as active agents.

The evolution of Arthurian female characters - from patriarchy to women empowerment

Repozytorium Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2020

The main aim of this thesis is to demonstrate how the patriarchal models rooted in Middle Ages influenced the portrayals of female characters in modern Arthurian literature.The task will be performed using close analysis of cultural content such as gender roles, social attitudes, models of male-female relations and approaches towards sexuality. The primary critical tools employed will be the theory of “écriture féminine” developed by Hélène Cixous (in particular the theory of “woman as a reader”) and the theory of “sceptical feminism” developed by Marleen Barr.In the first chapter, the works of two Victorian poets – A. Tennyson’s Idylls of the King and A. Ch. Swinburne’s Tristram of Lyonesse – will be analysed. Second chapter will be devoted to the analysis of a late 20th-c. novel by M. Z. Bradley, The Mists of Avalon.By comparing and contrasting these three works, the author will point out not only the patriarchal structures underlying those works, but also draw the reader’s attention to the progressive takes on certain issues and characters. The author would want this dissertation to serve as a contribution to the discussion on feminism in literature and modern Arthurian literature in general.

Arthur and Kingship as Represented by the Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth

The present study investigates the representation of King Arthur in the Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth (1343-1400). In doing so, it concentrates on specific historical contextearly Anglo-Saxon Englandand a specific form of authority-Anglo-Saxon kingship. The intention of the study is to show how Geoffrey of Monmouth used historical chronicles, not only for cataloguing the stories of various rulers of the island, but also for creating and shaping a single leader who can unify the kingdom. The study claims that the ideal kingship constructed around the figure of King Arthur in the Historia involved a reorientation of some of the more conventional norms of kingship; the heroic qualities of martial prowess, generosity and morality are quite essential in every conception of an ideal king. Geoffrey's conception of this ideal king was largely influenced by his personal aspirations, some of which have been outlined in the introduction of this article. The remaining parts of this study offer a historical as well as a literary analysis of the text, addressing the main qualities of kingship that were articulated in the text.

Discuss the character and function of the Welsh Arthurian texts

D3 The Arthurian Legend and Its Social Context - English III (Honours) Early English Literature and Language, 1983

The Arthurian legend has fascinated both scholars and the public alike for centuries, and has, in this age of mass production, become something of an industry. Novelists produce retelling of the stories, and scholars search for the "historical" Arthur, and write volumes on the relationships between the various texts, and Arthurs, which have survived the years Most of these treatments of the Arthurian legend are historical, but view the legend independently of its social context. This becomes a handicap when it is apparent that the subject matter of the legend, and its primary purpose, is political, and therefore inextricably bound up with the. working of the societies in which the multifarious Arthurian texts were produced.

Arthur: the Birth of the Anglo-Norman Legends

Geoffrey of Monmouth's claim that he had a source book, brought out of Brittany by his friend Walter, the Archdeacon of Oxford, has been doubted by many. In this paper, I suggest a possible route of transmission, which may lend credibility to the claim.

Multi and Interculturality In This Tale of Arthur the Women Do Shine

This paper aims at analyzing the role of some Arthurian feminine characters in contemporary Arthurian literature. Whilst their medieval counterparts had a mainly passive role and they did seldom take part in the action of the text, current Arthurian literature has turned this idea upside down. The first hints at this change could be observed in a few Victorian poems, but it has been in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries that this trend has shown more popular, not only in texts written by women, as the popular The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, but also in those written by male authors, as it is the case of Bernard Cornwell's trilogy "The Warlord Chronicles", on which this papers focuses. The study deals with the four most important feminine characters of the trilogy and how they interact in the political and religious upheavals of the time.

Narrating the Matter of Britain: Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Norman Colonization of Wales

The Chaucer Review, 2000

This article polemically rethinks Geoffrey’s relationship to the ongoing Anglo-Norman settlement in twelfth-century Wales by looking at the Historia Regum Britanniae’s larger narrative structures. I argue that, while Geoffrey certainly remains ambivalent in his representation of the ancient Britons as individuals (particularly King Arthur), the wider historiographic contexts of the work reveal the extent to which it advances Anglo-Norman territorial interests in Wales, relegating the Welsh to barbarism and an irretrievable pastness.