| The resident historian checks in | |
| Posted by: showtunetrivia 08:10 pm EDT 08/09/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Guinevere - Likable - Chromolume 07:01 pm EDT 08/09/20 | |
|
|
|
| CAMELOT is a fantasy, everybody, as much a fantasy as BRIGADOON. The legend of Arthur, who may (or may not) have been a fairly powerful warlord in the mess that was Britain after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, is complex, convoluted, has involved many, many contributions over the centuries. It’s so much part and parcel of English lore, it’s the core of what’s called “The Matter of Britain, the collected legends and quasi-history of the island. So we start with an actual post-Roman warlord,,c. 500. Centuries later, we have a bunch of medieval guys scribbling about his wonderful Golden Age, and pasting in all the stuff on chivalry and romance and codes of honor that would have had the original Arthur saying WTF? Chief among these was Sir Thomas Malory, c. 1485. Do you see any problems with somebody writing about something that happened a thousand years before? Like, getting facts straight? Hmm? Now we have T.H. White,,writing a popular novel, stealing from Malory and a bunch of other sources, and changing whatever he felt like. Arthur is no post-Roman warlord,,he’s a proper Anglo-Norman king (think Henry II in THE LION IN WINTER, and all Shakespearean kings, save Lear). And AJL took two portions of White’s THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, changed the stuff he wanted to (like, Merlyn tells Arthur about Lance and Jenny...). And you get CAMELOT. There was no jousting in 500 CE. That’s centuries later. I could drone on for much, much longer—I started out as an English medievalist, had done a senior thesis on the Archbishops of York in the early Anglo-Norman era, and still ended up with a minor field in medieval ecclesiastical history... Laura |
|
| reply | |
|
|
|
| Previous: | re: Guinevere - Likable - Chromolume 07:01 pm EDT 08/09/20 |
| Next: | re: The resident historian checks in - BroadwayTonyJ 11:23 am EDT 08/10/20 |
| Thread: |
|
Time to render: 0.012874 seconds.