Skip to main content
KBS_Icon_questionmark link-ico
Study Abroad at King’s
Study

Go to…

The Arthurian Tradition in Literature and History

Key information

  • Module code:

    7AAEM918

  • Level:

    7

  • Semester:

      Spring

  • Credit value:

    15

Module description

This interdisciplinary module aims to provide new insights into the Arthurian tradition in the medieval period, examining different forms which the legend took and some of the purposes - artistic, ideological, social and political - which it was made to serve. Arthurian literature is an oddity: a national literature, with an international reach. Arthurian Tradition reads a selection of medieval Arthurian literature in English, French and German (French and German literature may be read in translation), ending with a brief survey of the tradition’s contemporary presence. Its concerns include:

  • time (subjective, objective, human, God’s, eternity, liturgical, secular)
  • space (Arthurian geography)
  • gender and sexuality
  • genre (romance versus history/chronicle; historia versus fabula)
  • the political Arthur – constructing personal and national identities
  • relative versus absolute values
  • power, warfare, and empire
  • the role of the narrator
  • characterisation, psychology, the portrayal of emotion
  • language, rhetoric and dialectic
  • aspects of translatio – linguistic, cultural, political
  • realism and the merveilleux
  • the human and the non-human: animals, monsters, things

Assessment details

1 x 3,500 word essay (100%)

Teaching pattern

1 x 2 hour seminar, weekly

Suggested reading list

  • Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances, trans. William Kibler and Carleton Carroll (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991)
  • Sir Thomas Malory, Le MorteDarthur: A Norton Critical Edition, ed. Stephen H. A. Shepherd (New York: Norton, 2004) is the recommended edition of Malory. But if you already have Thomas Malory, Works, ed. Eugene Vinaver (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), you should be able to manage without buying the Norton. Abbreviated or modernised versions won’t do.
  • Hartmann von Aue, Iwein, or The Knight with the Lion, trans. Cyril Edwards (Cambridge: Brewer, 2007). (German Romance III). New copies of this translation are rather expensive, but it is readily available second hand (‘like new’) for around £20 (try www.abebooks.co.uk). [NB make sure you don’t buy the University of Nebraska Press 1979 translation. Only the translation by Cyril Edwards will do. If there are problems contact Sarah Bowden.]
  • Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, trans. Cyril Edwards (Oxford World Classics, 2009
  • Elizabeth Archibald and Ad Putter, eds, Cambridge Companion to the Arthurian Legend (Cambridge: CUP, 2009)

Subject areas

Department

Module description disclaimer

King’s College London reviews the modules offered on a regular basis to provide up-to-date, innovative and relevant programmes of study. Therefore, modules offered may change. We suggest you keep an eye on the course finder on our website for updates.

Please note that modules with a practical component will be capped due to educational requirements, which may mean that we cannot guarantee a place to all students who elect to study this module.

Please note that the module descriptions above are related to the current academic year and are subject to change.