05-002
King Arthur
To start
talking about epic fantasy, there is one person that should not be ignored.
Whether or not he himself, or the stories around him, are a part of epic
fantasy is arguable, saying that his life or stories have inspired most modern-day epic fantasy works is in no doubt. And the person’s name is, King Arthur.
King Arthur
The Arthurian
literary cycle is the biggest formation of the Matter of Britain, which is one
of the three great Western story cycles recalled repeatedly in medieval
literature. The other two being the Matter of France and the Matter of Rome.
Dragons, dungeons, knights, swords, shields, witchcrafts, together with
Christian mythology such as the Holy Grail, are important compositions in many
of the modern-day epic fantasy works.
Although I grew
up in an ex-British colony, I was not taught anything on King Arthur in school.
(Maybe I was but just not paying enough attention in my English or history
classes, sorry.) My adventure in epic fantasy started from those American
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) computer games. That was my teenage.
The next work that I set my feet on is already The Hobbit.
When I started
to dive deep into the origins of epic fantasy, I was expecting a book called
“The Bible of King Arthur”. Then I just simply borrow that book, read it and
learn everything about this legendary king. Or even easier, I just find a good
faithful Arthurian movie adaptation of that book, watch it and bling! “I am now
an Arthurian expert!” Unfortunately, it does not work out like this.
The reason is,
there is no such a canon for the Arthurian legend. Even worse, most scholars are
now saying that King Arthur may not have existed at all. The beginning of the Arthurian
legend is more like a composition of different legends in different time from
different areas of the ancient Britain, attributed to an imaginary figure that
has never existed in the real world.
All these
started from a book called Historia Brittonum, first published in the 9th
century. The book contains the first datable mention of King Arthur. Even
though, its reliability is questionable.
Knights of the Round Table
Image Source: Wikipedia
Nevertheless,
people kept contributing their stories to the Arthurian legend. And in 1136, Geoffrey
of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae somehow solidified all the core
Arthurian components, his father the king of England Uther Pendragon, his wife
Guinevere, his mentor Merlin the wizard, his best friend and also betrayer Sir
Lancelot, the knights of the round table, the sword from the stone, and the
general storyline of King Arthur’s reign. I do not want to repeat all these
here. There is an excellent page that outlined the story of King Arthur. If you
are a dummy to the Arthurian legend like me, read the page:
https://www.rabbies.com/en/blog/beginners-guide-king-arthur
Historia Regum Britanniae is not the end of the story. It is actually the beginning. Over the following centuries, people from all over the world started adding their own creations to the legend. Those derivative works enriched the Arthurian literary cycle a lot. However, they also brought in contradictions. That is why there is no such a so-called canonical King Arthur. The whole Arthurian legend is contributed by different people from different countries throughout different centuries. It is a mess, but fun. Even up to this moment, there are still people writing new King Arthur stories. Readers can just pick their beloved version to read. But remember to let go those contradictions found between different books.
Tristan and Iseult, a side-story of the Arthurian legend
Image Source: Wikipedia
As a father of
2 kids, there is not much time for me to read books. So, I turned to movies.
Since there is not a canon for King Arthur, I just picked several movies that
are popular and earnest to the King Arthur legend. In the next post, I will
briefly talk about those I picked.
Go back to the Lobby ...
No comments:
Post a Comment