The Arthurian Handbook: Second Edition

by Debra N. Mancoff, Norris J. Lacy, Geoffrey Ashe

Book Overview

Everything you ever wanted to know about King Arthur and his knights is covered in this fascinating volume: the origins of the Grail legend, the Tristan and Isolde love story in opera and literature, Spielberg's use of Arthurian motifs in Star Wars , the depiction of Arthur in paintings, the presentation of Camelot on the Broadway stage, the twitting of the legend in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and much more.
This critical survey of Arthurian...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0815320817
• ISBN13: 9780815320814
• Release Date: December 1997
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 456 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Excellent survey of Arthurian literature for scholars

If you want to know about the evolution of the Arthurian legends, from their basis in history to their literary evolution, this is a perfect book for you. The book traces the history of tales through the most ancient works from Wales and Brittany, through the evolution of the stories by various authors -- Chretien de Troyes, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Thomas Malory, and even considers works from the nineteenth and twentieth century (Tennyson, the marvelous though largely unread works of Charles Williams, T.S. Eliot, T.H. White, and even Monty Python and the Holy Grail)The book is an indispensable reference for keeping the legends straight in your mind, especially where there are differences of opinion (for instance, was the Grail a platter, a stone, or a chalice for the author). The book is intended as a reference book, so it is not for someone looking to read a story or two -- it is meant to be a guide to understanding the literary development of the cycle. As such, it is an indispensable guide to the various works out there.