I want to get into Arthurian literature. I want to become familiar with all the main elements of the legends

I want to get into Arthurian literature. I want to become familiar with all the main elements of the legends.

What are the core influential versions of Arthurian stories?

What are the best or essential anthologies?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_Furioso
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_Innamorato
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I, too, am interested in any responses.

All I know is that Le Morte D'Arthur is important, but I don't know how canonical it is overall.

I enjoyed Bradley's "The Mists of Avalon" some years ago. If you're not a /pol/tard or don't agree with the /b/ tier 'all women are good for is [insert sexual degradation]' meme, I think it's a worthwhile modern take.

I'll copy-paste the book list from my Arthurian Literature class I'm coincidentally taking this semester:
>The Romance of Arthur: An Anthology of Medieval Texts in Translation, 3rd edition. Norris J. Lacy and James J. Wilhelm (London & New York: Routledge, 2013).
>The Middle English Breton Lays, ed. Anne Laskaya and Eve Salisbury (Kalamazoo: TEAMS, 2001).
>Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur: The Winchester Manuscript, ed. Helen Cooper (Oxford & New York: Oxford UP, 1998).
>Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Ed. M. Thomas Inge (Oxford & New York: Oxford UP, 2008).

Romance of Arthur will give you a solid grounding in the basic legends and characters. Breton Lays contain some slightly more obscure myths and help to grasp the culture as a whole (they're also really fun to read, being written in Middle English). Le Morte Darthur is pretty crucial in much the same way as the Romance, and we haven't gotten to Twain in the class yet but I assume it's there for the memes.

Obviously this is all going to be introductory stuff for the most part (it's an undergraduate class), but it should give you a basis for further study. The Romance of Arthur, especially, contains a lot of citations and references that can lead you interesting places.

Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur is, as far as I know, the earliest and most widely influential collection of the King Arthur tales. Tennyson has a wonderful verse version called Idylls of the King, actually written to Queen Victoria as an homage to her late husband, Prince-Consort Albert. Steinbeck also has a pretty neat version.

I would suggest you start with Malory and come back to the other two later.

How serendipitous, thanks for the suggestions.

Malory seems like where I'll start

Fall of Camelot (The Enchanted World Series)

Thomas Mallory and Chretien de Troyes

IIRC Gregory of Monmouth is the first source to mention King Arthur

That would be Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, my bad

>The Winchester Manuscript

What exactly is the difference between the Caxton and the Winchester?

Just read T.H. White's bit

Do you have any idea if it's essential/recommended to read anything before Tennyson's Idylls? Or is it pretty much self-contained?

Tennyson's Idylls of the King

Chances are you know the story of Arthur already. There's not exactly spoilers in Arthurian lore.

>Modern take

Yeah, why I don't I just go watch the King Arthur anime

Well, why don't you? Are you under the impression that there is an authenticity in Tennyson that is missing in anything written fifty or a hundred years later?

I took a similar course a couple years back, and I second this user's endorsement of The Romance of Arthur. It has all the heavy hitters in there (Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chretian de Troyes, Layamon, Wace, Gawain and the Green Knight, Malory), so you'll learn everything you need to know to wreck every clue in the Jeopardy category. I'd recommend something like this so that instead of diving right into a full length work like Le Morte D'arthur, you get to sample the gamut alongside some analysis and context and whatnot.

Arthurian Romance by Derek Pearsall makes for a great starting point too. It's short and entertaining and similarly covers the basics. Highly recommended if you're just looking to tickle your pickle before you dig in to the real shit.

I didn't make this infograph OP but I thought you might like it.

fuck

The Buried Giant is Arthurian.

HOLY SHIT
I HAVE THAT BOOK

can confirm that the crystal cave is rad as shit

I liked that. He's not well regarded in some parts of Veeky Forums, but I rate Ishi.

Are you in my class?

reading Idylls before Le Morte D'Arthur is a bad idea

The biggest part of the answer got lost:

>Chretien
Chretien De Troyes invented the character of Lancelot. His Arthur tales are formative. And 300 years older than Mallory.

>lancelot

Literally a French cuck fanfiction character.

you'd like a squire's tale series. especially 2. morris just rips into lancelot.

Bernard Cornwell's trilogy is really excellent.

Romance of Arthur thirded. Even if some are excerpts, how can you top this in one volume?
Arthur in the Latin chronicles / James J. Wilhelm -- Arthur in the early Welsh tradition / John K. Bollard -- Culhwch and Olwen / Richard M. Loomis -- Arthur in Geoffrey of Monmouth / Richard M. Loomis -- Wace : Roman de Brut (Merlin episodes and "The birth and rise of Arthur") / James J. Wilhelm -- Layamon : Brut ("The death of Arthur") / James J. Wilhelm -- Chrétien de Troyes : Lancelot, or The knight of the cart / William W. Kibler -- Selected lyrics / James J. Wilhelm -- The saga of the mantle / Marianne E. Kalinke -- Béroul : The romance of Tristan / Norris J. Lacy -- Marie de France : The lay of Chievrefueil (The honeysuckle) / Russell Weingartner -- Thomas of Britain : Tristan ("The death scene") / James J. Wilhelm -- Cantare on the death of Tristan / James J. Wilhelm -- The prose Merlin and The suite du Merlin (episodes) / Samuel N. Rosenberg -- The rise of Gawain, nephew of Arthur / Mildred Leake Day -- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight / James J. Wilhelm -- The wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell / James J. Wilhelm -- The alliterative Mort Arthure / Valerie Krishna -- Sir Thomas Malory : Le morte Darthur ("The death of Arthur") /

Roger Llancelyn Green and Howard Pyle are good intros. Neither of them add anything that isn't already in Mallory, but they're still good.

If you like children's lit, Gerald Morris is comfy as hell with the Arthur mythos. Especially Gawain and Percival.

>Connecticut Yankee.

Gack. I guess if you want to get the full experience, yeah, but I can honestly say it's my least favorite contribution to Arthurian Lit.

You are now my nigga.

I now need to find my copies of the Fairy Books.

>Crystal Cave

Ohh hell yes.

>Faerie Queene

Good.

>Mists of Avalon

Fuck that pedo hack. I know her daughter, MZB and her books can burn in hell.

>Squire's Tale

Best part of that series. Lancelot just gets REAMED.

ayyy lmao

Add John C. Wright's Iron Chamber of Memory and his Moth and Cobweb books.

The first, Iron Chamber, is like a crazy marriage of Crystal Caves with Gormenghast. The second is a trilogy that is just KNIGHTLY AS FUCK and too much fun to spoil, borrows pretty heavily from Wolfram Von Eschenbach's Parsifal and Wagner's Lohengrin.

once and future king is goals
hilarious

BTW what's your opinion of Morey? I like him as a professor, although he's a little condescending.

I think he's great, although he was better when I took Chaucer with him, the middle english weeded out some of the class. Most of the condescension comes from people not having a biblical background or something similiar.

Fair. I was raised Christian so I don't have any problems keeping up with the biblical allusions. I guess he kind of reminds me of a high school English teacher, just in the way he interacts with the class.
While I've got you here, are there any other English classes/professors you would recommend? I'm a freshman so I don't really know many names.

Fate Stay/Night

I'd recommend taking Morey again for something purely Middle of Old English (I don't know about his 200-level survey class) , he's one of the only professors who actually works on essay writing at a technical level.
Deborah White is very smug and can be annoying, but her Romanticism class is good. She has a Wordsworth bias.
Cahill's Shakespeare is ok, but she has a focus on "Animal matters/studies". I only took it because it was when the Folio was here.
Avoid Kelleher.

All those Professor's lecture less than Morey, if that's what makes you think of high school. They do more class discussion, everyone-in-a-circle stuff.

If you do any creative writing, go with Grimsely.

I think it's just the way he lectures. Idk, it's probably all in my head.
I was warned off Cahill by a friend, I'll check out White though.

thanks for the advice friend see you in class tomorrow :^)

>>Connecticut Yankee.
man, i wanted to read it, but i had to order it. the version i got was so fucking hideous, that it nearly turned me off twain forever. it was just... so ugly.

MZB's terrible child abuse aside, I've tried to finish Mists of Avalon a couple times but it's such a slog that I didn't get more than halfway.

So I haven't finished it but I have read four hundred pages and I can't see Mists as anything more than a historical curiousity of New Age Wicca + chick lit feels + Arthuriana + a need for editing.

I wanted to like it. I am down with female heroines but Morgaine was weak and unlikable. On the other hand, Hild by Nicola Griffith was fantastic.

>Hild by Nicola Griffith
That looks really interesting, thank you.

Holy shit guys, I enter this thread, ctrl+f and no one mentioned Ariosto and Boiardo

What the fuck are you even doing here?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_Furioso
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_Innamorato