Borders Birthday Clip Art

reading guide Arthurian mythology (I) Sword in the mountains

When a few years ago I got to peek into the world of Arthurian romances, discovered that so far has been more literature that has filled me and enriched my life. Unfortunately it was not my experience so satisfying about sharing my interests and concerns with the world and found two types of reactions. Usually prevails in the collective mentality this way:

Like Homer Greco-Roman literature: what exquisite training! What management culture classic! Surely you also like the viiino.

I like the Golden Age literature : man! The Cervantes, Quevedo, the great heroes of our language. Right now we see him occupying a seat in the SAR.

Like medieval literature: you're a hopeless geek. Stop your fantasies.

For one example:

To me, personally, the stories of King Arthur, and swords Exacalibur capricious stopped caring at fifteen years. But this is a gem Merlin even those who, like me, prefer the realism and the stories in which nobody disguises. (Taken from here ).

Indeed, not only defends a filthy slop as the BBC's Merlin , but qualifying and block several essential works in world literature readings for teens. When anyone who has read Chretien de Troyes know that this man so he knew more of medieval psychology and human emotions that all Lost writing team.

Another side effect is that people around you and is interested in the subject learns to hate a word. And this is ... " version." Here the movie Excalibur has done much harm. That itself is a very great movie. It is also true that very remotely based on what he wrote Thomas Malory, and many more versions of the story, because virtually every author I decided to tell his side of the story he did in his way, there is no "Arthurian megalibraco "where is contained the canonical version of the myth. So sometimes there are conversations like this:

- Friend: Hey, Arthur sleeps with his sister Morgana is not it, haha.
- Your : pss, because I have not seen that in any version, in fact almost always appears to lie with another sister, Margawse, but hey, it gives me actually ...
- A. : Aaaah, well, but then Sir Gawain is not? That is to good people.
- T. : It depends, for the British was the model of all virtues, but in the French version of the myth is rather brutote. In Malory, too.
- A .: But Malory was not English?
- T .: Psíííí, but is inspired by the French versions y. ..
- A .: Let's leave.

This confuses a lot that is outside the Arthurian myth as a dense, labyrinthine saga as the same forest Broceliande . It is a shame, because big names go unnoticed without taking their rightful place in the history of literature. To address this we present the fantastic

reading guide Arthurian mythology

in a comfortable two entries!

We call it mythology because the compendium of stories that now populate the collective imagination has its deepest roots in a series of folktales, oral transmission, arising from vague historical events that occurred between V late d. C. and early sixth century C. And as for example in classical mythology, the outlines of the myth are more or less clear, and the characters of the characters are more or less fixed (with exceptions) but there are plenty of variants as author, place or date.

For these dates (Roman withdrawal from Britain), in today's Britain, the Briton Wortigern had called three Germanic tribes, Jutes, Angles and Saxons, to help maintain power. As we all know, the idea came out frog and the Germans taking over the island ended. A compendium of stories that spoke about the heroic resistance of Romano-British leaders were eventually codified the principle in works "historical" and later in "Romance" or what is the same "polite fiction." These stories were loading of ideological values, moral and exemplary character repeated as a constant. This

the legends that are lost in the fog and the legendary hummus sounds great, but beyond generalities and the Celtic-New Age pastiche that sometimes we want to sell, Arthurian mythology we know today is the result of a series author, in verse or prose, with its own name and wrote a literature "entertainment" for a noble public. These authors extolled the virtues of chivalry, in a world, the centuries XII and XIII in the cavalry he was disgusted by the rise of new social groups such as the bourgeoisie, petty and greedy in the eyes of the knights.

To make matters worse, the church emerged from the Gregorian reform (XI century) also wanted to give his own version of the myth, missing more. Studying this

J. Campbell identified four Estapar in the formation of the Matter of Britain :

1) The time mitogenetic 450-950

In the sixth century Gildas the Wise remember stories of his childhood on resistance against the invader but does not cite any king. The leader of the resistance in this case was a Roman name Aurelius Ambrosius. In the poem Gododdin , said of a hero who had an outstanding value "despite it was not Arturo ", however, the date of this poem is far from clear, and can match the verse in which Arthur appears at a later interpolation, XIII century .

statue St. Gildas in France.

The first direct mention of Arthur is the one that makes the monk Nennius in History Britonum ( ninth century at least three centuries after the fact!) and Arthur is no more than simple bellorum dux, a military commander. Another century more, and X , in Annales Cambriae , a certain Merdraut (Mordred) appears to fight with Arturo. Was there really

Arthur? Who knows. But it's not something I worry too much.

2) and 3) The period of development oral

These two phases are in fact one that goes from 950 to 1140 Why two pieces? Because

1066 has an important place in the development of the myth: the Normans conquered England and the troubadours Britons contact the conteors of Brittany. Meanwhile, the new owners took the opportunity to seize myth had the Saxons as the evil invaders and conquerors Norman went from being a "liberators", the heirs of Arthur. That sounds much better be going.

Since 1140 hand of Geoffrey of Monmouth the myth began his literary career with the fourth and final phase of development, which is what interests us, but that will be in the next installment.