Scholars of popular culture turn their attention to various expressions of the Arthurian legend, most from the 20th century, with a more balanced consideration of women (writers, characters, and critics) than has traditionally been the case. Among the topics are the image of Morgan Le Fay, postmodern Arthur, Mark Twain, Joseph Campbell, and several recent movies. No index. Paper edition (unseen), $19.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

From medieval history and romance through various twentieth-century renderings, this collection of essays considers themes, characters, and events of the legend and the meanings they impart. Sir Thomas Malory, Chrétien de Troyes, Mark Twain, Thomas Berger, Marion Zimmer Bradley, C. J. Cherryh, and other prose writers are discussed as are comic books and other genres. Film interpretations, photographic illustrations, and musical expressions receive analytical attention, as do poetic, religious, and mythic uses of the Arthurian world.

• Arthur in the Celtic Languages is a reliable up-to-date introduction to the field. • It is the only book covering Arthurian literature and traditions in the Celtic languages (Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Irish, Scottish Gaelic) • This book covers medieval and modern literatures. • It also discusses folklore, ballads and other popular traditions as well as place-names.

Originally published: Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1983.

This study innovatively explores how Malory's Morte D'Arthur responds to available literary vernacular Arthurian traditions which the French defined as theoretical in impulse, the English as performative and experimental. Negotiating these influences, Malory transforms constructions of masculine heroism, especially in the presentation of Launcelot, and exposes the tensions and disillusions of the Arthurian project. The Morte poignantly conveys a desire for integrity in narrative and subject-matter, but at the same time tests literary conceptualizations of history, nationalism, gender and selfhood, and considers the failures of social and legal institutionalizations of violence, in a critique of literary form and of social order.

King Arthur in America analyzes the tremendous appeal of the Arthurian legends in America by examining the ways that Americans have found to democratize the Matter of Britain and to incorporate aspects of it not only into America's own mythologies but also into literature, film, social history, and popular culture.

This is the first comprehensive book on the Arthurian legend in medieval and Renaissance Italy since Edmund Gardner’s 1930 The Arthurian Legend in Italian Literature. Arthurian material reached all levels of Italian society, from princely courts with their luxury books and frescoed palaces, to the merchant classes and even popular audiences in the piazza, which enjoyed shorter retellings in verse and prose. Unique assemblages emerge on Italian soil, such as the Compilation of Rustichello da Pisa or the innovative Tavola Ritonda, in versions made for both Tuscany and the Po Valley. Chapters examine the transmission of the French romances across Italy; reworkings in various Italian regional dialects; the textual relations of the prose Tristan; narrative structures employed by Italian writers; later ottava rima poetic versions in the new medium of printed books; the Arthurian-themed art of the Middle Ages and Renaissance; and more. The Arthur of the Italians offers a rich corpus of new criticism by scholars who have brought the Italian Arthurian material back into critical conversation.