CFP: ENGLISH ARTHURIAN LITERATURE BETWEEN MALORY AND TENNYSON
International Arthurian Society-North American Branch-sponsored session
ICMS “Kalamazoo” 2020
The four centuries between William Caxton’s publication of Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur (1485) and the completion of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s cycle of twelve narrative Arthurian poems, The Idylls of the King (1885), tend to be regarded as ‘an Arthurian nadir’ for English-language Arthurian literature. This generalization, as Alan Lupack has noted, trivializes a rich assortment of texts in which Arthur plays a leading role, but one that often departs considerably from his Malorian likeness. This panel seeks to foster an exploration of the portrayal of King Arthur within this corpus of ‘lesser’ Arthuriana. Our aim is to promote interest in these oft-forgotten texts, and to explore how these treatments of Arthur more broadly illuminate post-medieval reception of the history and literature of the Middle Ages. We invite you to explore the portrayal of King Arthur in English literary works written between 1485 and 1885—the more eccentric, the better. How was King Arthur applied to the cultural context in which the given text was composed? Did medieval Arthurian narratives serve as source material? We encourage an examination of the harmonization, successful or unsuccessful, of old and new genres and motifs.
Session format: 15-20-minute papers
Please send your 300-word abstract and completed PIF form to David Johnson, djohnson@fsu.edu, and Christopher Berard, cberard2@providence.edu, by September 15.
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