Imagining King Arthur

We will study major Arthurian narratives of the European Middle Ages, primarily of the twelfth through fifteenth centuries, and one modern version of the story (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court). In addition to attending to literary issues of genre and style, we will pay special attention to the larger question of what cultural values various contributions to the Arthurian tradition reflect, promote, or call into question. Topics to be discussed include historicity and textual authority, the role of chivalric ideology in medieval social and political life, the cult of "courtly love" and its attendant gender dynamics, and the impact of social change on the reception of the Arthur story in later periods.