jefferiestubes:+ TIME’s 100 Most Influential People Who Never Lived: King Arther [Origin: British Fo
jefferiestubes:+ TIME’s 100 Most Influential People Who Never Lived: King Arther [Origin: British Folklore; Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, circa A.D. 1136]“Like several other characters in this book, King Arthur may not be entirely fictitious; it is highly possible that this great exemplar of a just monarch was based on a real king of the Dark Ages, a British warlord who fought for the rights of his people against Saxon invaders. But even if there was at one time such a leader, he is a victim of identity theft, his exploits overshadowed by the thick layers of myth and lore that have encrusted his fictional doppelganger.And what myths they are, many of them first put forth by the chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth in his 12th century history of British Kings. His tale of Arthur Pendragon and his rise to power is rich with unforgettable images and figures. There is the memorable test presented by Excalibur, the sword in the stone, and the wise aid of the wizard Merlin, model for Tolkein’s Gandalf, and there is the wooing of the fair Guinevere.Later tales by the 12th century French poet Chretien de Troyes and the British chronicler Wace introduce the Round Table, a rare symbol of democratic equality in a caste-choked society. The wonderful Knights of the Round Table are the forerunners of every band of good guys that followed: Robin Hood and his Merry Men, the Dirty Dozen, and the Avengers, Chretien wrote of the tragic but necessary downfall of Camelot, the ideal state sundered by man’s inescapable frailties: pride, jealousy and lust.Somewhere along the way, as Arthur’s very British story was transformed to express the new European worldview of chivalry, the figure of Arthur was hijacked: he was reduced to playing the cuckold, an impotent prop in the tale of the forbidden passion of the gallant French knight Lancelot and Guinevere. But Arthur rose again in the Romantic era of the 19th century, when Sir Walter Scott, Alfred Lord Tennyson and others created a mania for all things medieval.British novelist T.H. White’s witty, rich novel of Arthur’s story, The Once and Future King (1958), scoured the rust off the old tale. Lerner and Loewe’s musical adaptation of White’s yarn, Camelot (1960), and its association with the Kennedy Administration, ensured Arthur’s don’t-let-it-be-forgot appeal. And when the Monty Python crew unveiled the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail and followed it in 2005 with the musical comedy Spamalot—well, as they say in Hollywood: Arthur has legs for miles. -- source link
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