Arthurian Sentence Examples

The chief heroes of the medieval Arthurian romances are the following.

The Arthurian cycle must have its own love-tale; Guenevere, the leading lady of that cycle, could not be behind the courtly ladies of the day and lack a lover; one had to be found for her.

The Lancelot story, in its rise and development, belongs exclusively to the later stage of Arthurian romance; it was a story for the court, not for the folk, and it lacks alike the dramatic force and human appeal of the genuine "popular" tale.

With reference to the Celtic race, P. cordata, it is interesting to note its connexion with Arthurian legend and the Isle of Avalon or Isle of Apples.

An island in Loch Awe has a Celtic legend containing the principal features of Arthurian story; but in this case the word is "berries" instead of "apples."

We parallel it with the Arthurian story, and hold that, just as there was probably a real Arthur, however different from the hero of the trouveres, so there was a real Hood, however now enlarged and disguised by the accretions of legend.

The special interest of Map lies in the perplexing question of his relation to the Arthurian legend and literature.

It seems difficult also to believe that Map's name should be so constantly connected with our Arthurian tradition without any ground whatever; though it must be admitted that he himself never makes any such claim - the references in the romances are all couched in the third person, and bear no sign of being other than the record by the copyist of a traditional attribution.

It is of course possible that Map's rise at court may have been due to his having hit the literary taste of the monarch, who, we know, was interested in the Arthurian tradition, but it must be admitted that direct evidence on the subject is practically nil, and that in the present condition of our knowledge we can only advance possible hypotheses.

However this may be, remnants of their primitive superhuman qualities cling to the Celtic heroes long after they have been transfigured, under the influence of Christianity and chivalry, into the heroes of the medieval Arthurian romance, types - for the most part - of the knightly virtues as these were conceived by the middle ages; while shadowy memories of early myths live on, strangely disguised, in certain of the episodes repeated uncritically by the medieval poets.

Lancelot, son of Ban king of Brittany, a creation of chivalrous romance, who only appears in Arthurian literature under French influence, known chiefly from his amour with Guinevere, perhaps in imitation of the story of Tristan and Iseult.

The romances of this cycle, of Germanic (Frankish) origin and developed probably in the north of France by the French (probably in the north of France) contain reminiscences of the heroes of the Merovingian period, and in their later development were influenced by the Arthurian cycle.

For some years the world heard nothing from him; he was at Farringford, busying himself with the Arthurian traditions.

In 1857 two Arthurian poems had been tentatively and privately printed, as Enid and Nimue, or the True and the False, to see how the idyllic form would be liked by the inner circle of Tennyson's friends.

He now put the Arthurian legends aside fiat a time, and devoted himself to the composition, in 1862, of "Enoch Arden," which, however, did not appear until 1864, and then in a volume which also contained "Sea Dreams," "Aylmer's Field" and, above all, "The Northern Farmer," the first and finest of Tennyson's remarkable studies in dialect_ In April of this year Garibaldi visited Farringford; in February 1865 Tennyson's mother died at Hampstead in her eighty-fifth year; in the ensuing summer he travelled in Germany.

The noble poem Lucretius, one of the greatest of Tennyson's versified monographs, appeared in May 1868, and in this year The Holy Grail was at last finished; it was published in 1869, together with three other idyls belonging to the Arthurian epic, and various miscellaneous lyrics, besides Lucretius.

Believing that his work with the romantic Arthurian epics was concluded, Tennyson now turned his attention to a department of poetry which had long attracted him, but which he had never seriously attempted - the drama.

It is not improbable that it represents a free and individual working over of the original Fescamp version, and that in its later shape it was intended to form, and did at one time form, the Quest section of the cyclic redaction of the Arthurian prose romances, being dislodged from this position by the Galahad Quese.

It was, however, the Arthurian legend which of all his fabrications attained the greatest vogue.

The succeeding age saw the Arthurian story popularized, through translations of the French romances, as far afield as Germany and Scandinavia.

His Morte d'Arthur, printed by Caxton in 1485, epitomizes the rich mythology which Geoffrey's work had first called into life, and gave the Arthurian story a lasting place in the English imagination.

Tennyson, who only knew the Arthurian story through the medium of Malory, has, by exaggeration, largely contributed to this misunderstanding.

Gaston Paris, belongs to the very earliest stage of Arthurian tradition, long antedating the crystallization of such tradition into literary form.

For his work on the Arthurian legend see 12.300, 321, 669.

The Cornish knights (who in Arthurian romance are always represented as hopeless cowards), dare not contest his claim but Tristan challenges him to single combat, slays him and frees Cornwall from tribute.

Besides the poems, we possess the prose Tristan, an enormous compilation, akin to the prose Lancelot, where the original story, though still to be traced, is obscured by a mass of later Arthurian adventures.

It should be noted that Tristan is never more than superficially connected with Arthur, an occasional visitor at his court; though in its later form ranked among the Arthurian romances, the Tristan is really an independent story, and does not form a part of the ordinary cyclic redaction.

Recent grail researches have made it most probable that that mysterious talisman was originally the vessel of the ritual feast held in honour of a deity of vegetation, - Adonis, or another; if the Round Table also, as Dr Mott suggests, derives from a similar source, we have a link between these two notable features of Arthurian tradition, and an additional piece of evidence in support of the view that behind the Arthur of romance there lie not only memories of an historic British chieftain, but distinct traces of a mythological and beneficent hero.

In the 12th century the Matiere de France was waning, the Matiere de Bretagne waxing in popularity, and public opinion demanded that the central figure of the younger cycle (for whatever the date of the subject matter, as a literary cycle the Arthurian is the younger) should not be inferior in dignity and importance to that of the earlier.

Numerous parallels exist between the Arthurian and early Irish heroic cycles, notably the Fenian or Ossianic. This Fenian cycle is very closely connected with the Tuatha de Danaan, the Celtic deities of vegetation and increase; recent research has shown that two notable features of the Arthurian story, the Round Table and the Grail, can be most reasonably accounted for as survivals of this Nature worship, and were probably parts of the legend from the first.

This brief summary of the leading features of the Arthurian tradition will indicate with what confused and complex material we are here dealing.

Professor Rhys' Studies in the Arthurian Legend are largely based on Welsh material, and may be consulted for details, though the conclusions drawn are not in harmony with recent research.

In the French romances Lancelot is a late addition to the Arthurian cycle, his birth is not recorded till long after the marriage of Arthur and Guenevere, and he is at least twenty years the junior of the queen.

But though Guenevere has changed her lover, the tradition of her infidelity is of much earlier date and formed a part of the primitive Arthurian legend.

A curious fragment of Welsh dialogues, printed by Professor Rhys in his Studies on the Arthurian Legend, appears to represent Kay as the abductor, In the pseudo-Chronicles and the romances based upon them the abductor is Mordred, and in the chronicles there is no doubt that the lady was no unwilling victim.

The truth is probably that the tradition of his wife's adultery and treachery was a genuine part of the Arthurian story, which, neglected for a time, was brought again into prominence by the social conditions of the courts for which the later romances were composed; and it is in this later and conventionalized form that the tale has become familiar to us.

Yet they are not medieval in the same sense as the song of Roland or the Arthurian cycle.

The historian Barros tried his youthful pen in a romance of chivalry, the Chronica do Imperador Clarimundo, while in another branch, and a popular one in Portugal, the Arthurian cycle, the dramatist Ferreira de Vasconcellos wrote Sagramor or Memorial das proesas da segunda Tavola Redonda.

Lyonnesse is the scene of many incidents in the Arthurian romances, and especially in the romances of Tristram and Iseult.

According to Professor Forster there were no Arthurian romances previous to Chretien, and equally, of course, no insular romantic tradition.

Zimmer, who derives the Arthurian names largely from Breton roots.

In opposition to this the school of which the late Gaston Paris was the leading, and most brilliant, representative, maintains that the Arthurian tradition, romantic equally with historic, was preserved in Wales through the medium of the bards, was by them communicated to their Norman conquerors, worked up into poems by the AngloNormans, and by them transmitted to the continental poets.

Of not one do we as yet possess a critical and comparative text, and in the absence of such texts the publication of any definite and detailed theory as to the evolution and relative position of the separate branches of the Arthurian cycle is to be deprecated.

These were rhymed but also alliterative, in regular form, with prologue or mansong (often the prettiest part of the whole), main portion telling the tale (mostly derived in early days from the French romances of the Carlovingian, Arthurian or Alexandrian cycles, or from the mythic or skriik-segur), and epilogue.

Less a Viking, really, than an Arthurian knight, Borg was embraced by England.

The poem has been described as the most successful poem inspired by the Arthurian legends since the Middle Ages.

This kingdom, covering from Wiltshire to Cornwall, is the area richest in Arthurian lore.

He invests the language of the brief chapters of Arthurian myth with a sense of otherness.

It was only to be expected that they would surface from time to time in Arthurian romance.

Welsh tradition does not know him; early Italian records, which have preserved the names of Arthur and Gawain, have no reference to Lancelot; among the group of Arthurian knights figured on the architrave of the north doorway of Modena cathedral (a work of the 12th century) he finds no place; the real cause for his apparently sudden and triumphant rise to popularity is extremely difficult to determine.

The authorship of the Lancelot proper, on the other hand, is invariably ascribed to Walter Map (see MAP), the chancellor of Henry II., but so also are the majority of the Arthurian prose Romances.

In fact it may safely be said that, with the exception of the prose Tristan, always attributed either to Luces de Gast, or Belie de Borron, the authority of Map has been invoked for the entire vast mass of Arthurian prose romantic literature.

The English Arthurian poems regard him as the type and model of chivalrous courtesy, "the fine father of nurture," and as Professor Maynadier has well remarked, "previous to the appearance of Malory's compilation it was Gawain rather than Arthur, who was the typical English hero."

It is curious, for instance, to compare the scanty references to the material marvels of Constantinople which Villehardouin saw in their glory, which perished by sack and fire under his very eyes, and which live chiefly in the melancholy pages of his Greek contemporary Nicetas, with the elaborate descriptions of the scarcely greater wonders of fabulous courts at Constantinople itself, at Babylon, and elsewhere, to be found in his other contemporaries, the later chanson de geste writers and the earlier embroiderers of the Arthurian romances and romans d'aventures.

Finally, the most celebrated love-legend of the middle ages, and one of the most beautiful inventions of world-literature, the story of Tristan and Iseult, tempted two authors, Beroul and Thomas, the first of whom is probably, and the second certainly, Anglo-Norman (see Arthurian Legend; Grail, The Holy; Tristan).

The truth is probably that the tradition of his wife's adultery and treachery was a genuine part of the Arthurian story, which, neglected for a time, was brought again into prominence by the social conditions of the courts for which the later romances were composed; and it is in this later and conventionalized form that the tale has become familiar to us (see also Lancelot).

It was a period with him of great mental activity, and is represented by four of his books which stand as admirable witnesses to the Lowell of 1848, namely, the second series of Poems, containing among others "Columbus," "An Indian Summer Reverie," "To the Dandelion," "The Changeling"; A Fable for Critics, in which, after the manner of Leigh Hunt's The Feast of the Poets, he characterizes in witty verse and with good-natured satire American contemporary writers, and in which, the publication being anonymous, he included himself; The Vision of Sir Launfal, a romantic story suggested by the Arthurian legends - one of his most popular poems; and finally The Biglow Papers.

By the "Arthurian legend," or Matiere de Bretagne, we mean the subject-matter of that important body of medieval literature known as the Arthurian cycle (see Arthur).

The first 28 books detail the brother and sister team as they work to free the Arthurian character Morgan le Fay from a spell, solve ancient riddles and save old stories from being lost.

Arthurian wizard Merlin begins instructing the siblings through a new set of time traveling elements.

Admirers of inspirational and symbolic jewelry will love Chalice Well pendants and the jewelry's connection to both Christianity and Arthurian legend.

Arthurian lore fans also travel to Chalice Well, in hope of finding a proof that a legend may have lived.

In this letter he ran down the poem and described that allegorical presentation of virtues by using the much loved Arthurian knights.

The poem itself can be considered propaganda for the ruler of the country by plainly stating that Queen Elizabeth I, and the Tudor line, is directly connected to Arthurian lore.

Though based on the Arthurian legend the language of the poem, as well as the style and spirit, is more representational of Italian literary style.

What appears the most probable solution is that which regards Lancelot as the hero of an independent and widely diffused folk-tale, which, owing to certain special circumstances, was brought into contact with, and incorporated in, the Arthurian tradition.

Moreover, the Arthurian story was the popular story of the day, and Tristan did not belong to the magic circle, though he was ultimately introduced, somewhat clumsily, it must be admitted, within its bounds.

In fact, it does for the Robin Hood cycle what a few years before Sir Thomas Malory had done for the Arthurian romances - what in the 6th century B.C. Peisistratus is said to have done for the Homeric poems.

The scene of the "sparrow-hawk" tournament, described in Geraint and Enid, one of the Arthurian romances, is laid at Cardiff.

Jimmy Carter 71 In Arthurian legend who found the Holy Grail?

Medieval Arthurian tales visit the topic of Sir Lanval, a knight who falls in love with a spectacular fairy of surpassing beauty with the stipulation that their love must be kept a secret.

Merlin the Wizard is a figure of legend, mystery and magic in literature, folklore and pop culture associated with the Arthurian legend.