The Mammoth Book of King Arthur (78 page)

Paget, Henry Marriott
(1856–1936),
Lady of Shalott
(1881)

Paton, Joseph Noel
(Scottish; 1821–1902),
Sir Lancelot of the Lake
(1860),
Death Barge of King Arthur
(1865),
Sir Galahad’s Vision of the
Sangreal
(1880),
Sir Galahad and his Angel
(1884)

Pollen, J. Hungerford
(1820–1902)
King Arthur obtaining the sword Excalibur
(1857) for the Oxford Union murals

Prinsep, Valentine Cameron
(1838–1904),
Sir Pelleas Leaving the Lady Ettarde
(1857) for the Oxford Union murals

Riviere, Briton
(1840–1920),
Elaine Floats Down to Camelot
(1860/3)

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel
(1828–1882),
Sir Lancelot prevented by his sin from entering the Chapel of the San Graal
(1857) for the Oxford Union murals.
Paintings,
Arthur’s Tomb
(1854),
How Sir
Galahad, Sir Bors and Sir Percival were Fed with the Grael
(1864),
Tristram and Isolde Drinking the Love
Potion
(1867); engraving,
Lady of Shallott
(1857). Drawings,
King Arthur and the Weeping Queens
(1857),
Queen Genever
(1858)

Sandys, Frederick
(1832–1904),
Morgan-le-Fay
(1863),
Vivien
(1863)

Schmalz, Herbert Gustav
(1856–1935),
Elaine
(1885)

Shaw, Byam
(1872–1919),
The Lady of Shalott
(1898)

Spencer-Stanhope, John Roddam
(1829–1908),
Sir Gawaine and the Damsels at the Fountain
(1857) for the Oxford Union murals;
Morgan le Fay

Stillman, Marie Spartali
(1843–1927),
Sir Tristram and La Belle Iseult
(1873)

Sullivan, Edmund Joseph
(1869–1933),
The Lady of Shalott
(1899)

Wallis, Henry
(1830–1916),
Elaine Floats Down to Camelot
(1861)

Waterhouse, J.W.
(1849–1917), seven paintings of the Lady of Shalott from
The Lady of Shalott
(1888) to
I am Half Sick of Shadows
(1915),
Tristram
and Isolde
(1916)

Watson Homer
(Canadian, 1855–1936),
The Death of Elaine
(1877)

Watts, George Frederic
(1817–1904),
Sir Galahad
(1862),
Britomart and her Nurse
(1878)

Whall, Veronica
(1887–1967), 72 stained-glass windows in Arthur’s Hall, Tintagel (1931–33)

Wheelwright, Rowland
(1870–1955),
Enid and Gereint
(1907)

For those wishing to explore further, the authoritative works on Arthurian art are
The Arthurian Revival in Victorian Art
by Debra N. Mancoff (Garland, 1990),
The
Legends of King Arthur in Art
by Muriel Whitaker (Brewer, 1990) and
The Quest for the Grail: Arthurian Legend in British Art 1840–1920
by Christine Poulson (Manchester University
Press, 1999).

Tennyson’s work encouraged others to visit the Arthurian world. In 1852, Matthew Arnold composed the first modern English treatment of the Tristan story, in the verse
romance
Tristram and Iseult
, which includes, as a coda, Vivian’s beguilement of Merlin.
Algernon Swinburne was also fascinated by the Tristan legend. An early
attempt, “Queen Yseult”, remained unfinished, but in 1882 Swinburne completed
Tristram of Lyonesse.
Swinburne believed that Tennyson had debased the purity of the original story,
and that Arnold had been too basic. He wanted to restore to all its glory what he held as “the loveliest of medieval legends”, showing Tristram as a doomed hero, a victim of fate.
Swinburne also wrote
The Tale of Balen
(1896).

The story of Tristan also attracted the world of opera in the form of Richard Wagner. Wagner had already entered Arthurian territory, or at least Grail territory, with
Lohengrin
(1850),
the story of Parsifal’s son who comes to earth as a maiden’s champion but is bound by the Grail oath to keep his anonymity, which is shattered when he is forced to give his name. Wagner
would return to the Grail Quest with
Parsifal
(1882). But his first major Arthurian opera was
Tristan und Isolde
(1865), based loosely on Gottfried von Strassburg’s romance
though reduced to basics for dramatic effect. Wagner’s characters are ruled by passion, hate turning to love, love turning to despair.
Tristan und Isolde
is perhaps more in the mould
of
Romeo and Juliet
than an Arthurian romance, but its power demonstrates the allure the story had for the Victorians.

Wagner also pared
Parsifal
down in order to create a Christian allegory of a young innocent hero, Parsifal, who must overcome physical love to command a sacrificial love of mankind as a
means of combating the evil sorcerer Klingsor, who has used the temptress Kundry to seduce Amfortas, guardian of the Grail.

In 1864 the West Country antiquary Robert Stephen Hawker, parson of Morwenstowe, published his own mystical poem of the Grail quest in
The Quest of the Sangraal
, the first of four planned
parts, though no more appeared.

From poetry, art and music the Arthurian saga returned to the theatre with
King Arthur
by Joseph Comyns Carr, first performed at the Lyceum in London in January 1895. The first play to
attempt an authentic adaptation of the Arthurian romance rather than using Geoffrey’s
History
, it was an artistic and critical success. Burne-Jones designed the scenery and costumes,
Sir Arthur Sullivan provided the incidental music. Henry Irving played Arthur to Ellen Terry’s Guenevere.

Soon after the appearance of the first edition of
Idylls of the King
, James Knowles (later Sir James) completed his modern rendition of
Morte Darthur
as
The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights
(1862), which he dedicated to Tennyson. It led to a firm friendship with Tennyson, and the poet claimed that it was Knowles who encouraged him to
return to the Arthurian world to continue the
Idylls
. Knowles’s version proved extremely popular and encouraged other adaptations of Malory’s work. There was a profusion of
abridgments and adaptations of
Morte Darthur
from the late Victorian era onwards. Anyone interested in a detailed listing should consult
Sir Thomas Malory: An Anecdotal Bibliography of
Editions 1485–1985
by Barry Gaines (1990).

Amongst these were some beautiful illustrated editions of both Malory and Tennyson. For
Idylls
these include Gustave Doré’s famed artwork in the 1868 edition and Eleanor
Fortescue-Brickdale’s beautiful paintings for the Hodder & Stoughton 1911 edition.
Morte d’Arthur
includes those by Aubrey Beardsley (Dent, 1893/4), W. Russell Flint
(Riccardi, 1910/11) and Arthur Rackham (Macmillan, 1917). The American Sidney Lanier adapted it as
The Boy’s King Arthur
(Scribner, 1880), with a later edition illustrated by N.C.
Wyeth (1917) being one of the most admired of all printings. In Britain, Andrew Lang adapted it as
Tales of King Arthur and the Round Table
(Longman, 1905), whilst in America Howard Pyle
illustrated his own adaptations in four books,
The Story of King Arthur and His Knights
(1903),
The Story of the Champions of the Round Table
(1905),
The Story of Sir Launcelot and
his Companions
(1907) and
The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur
(1911).

This profusion of books, and there were plenty more, inevitably led to a parody of the Arthurian world which Mark Twain was only too happy to provide in
A Connecticut Yankee at the Court of
King Arthur
(1889). It was not long before someone attempted to produce a genuine historical novel based on the true Dark Age world. This fell to William H. Babcock with
Cian of the
Chariots
(1898), complete with extensive notes showing the thoroughness of his research. The modern Arthurian novel had arrived.

From then on authors began to produce their own original
versions of the Arthurian story, creating their own characters and worlds, not necessarily beholden to Malory or
Geoffrey or Chrétien. This “modern” treatment of Arthur dominated the twentieth century, and the next chapter provides a working checklist of all major Arthurian novels.

SECTION 3

THE BIG PICTURE

21

SCRIBES OF THE ROUND TABLE: MODERN ARTHURIAN NOVELS

The twentieth century saw an explosion of novels either set in the Arthurian world, or featuring Arthurian characters in other settings. The production increased significantly
after T.H. White completed his sequence
The Once and Future King
(1958), and shows no sign of abating. It is impossible here to list every book and story that has appeared over the last
century. The most comprehensive bibliography of Arthurian texts is
The Arthurian Annals
compiled by Dan Nastali and Phil Boardman (OUP, 2004), whilst another useful compendium is
The
Return from Avalon
, by Raymond H. Thompson (Greenwood Press, 1985).

The following list is in alphabetical order by the author’s surname. Where known, authors’ dates are provided. I have restricted coverage to books available in the English language
and which are set in a recognizable Arthurian setting. An (h) after the title denotes those which take place in a realistic, historical Dark Age world; an (m) denotes those set in the
quasi-historical world of the medieval romances but which still endeavour to be historical; and an (f) marks those that are fantasies, but still set in a form of historical milieu. I have not
included standard retellings of Malory’s
Morte d’Arthur
. I have excluded all works with a contemporary or science fiction setting unless it is directly related to one of the
above. I have also excluded most time-shift stories, such as Mark Twain’s
A Connecticut Yankee
, and those where Arthur and his knights are transported every which-where. Books for
young adults are
included (designated YA), but I have excluded those for young children.

I have listed the first publication details only, but have noted recently available reprints for books otherwise long out of print. US indicates that the book first appeared in the United
States, UK in the United Kingdom. The list excludes poetry and drama but includes significant short story collections. The emphasis is on novels. I have asterisked
those titles which I believe
should serve as a basic Arthurian library.

Although I have excluded poetry I must at least mention the following. No discussion of Arthurian-influenced works can omit reference to
The Waste Land
by T.S. Eliot (1922), even though
he drew primarily upon Jessie Weston’s study of the Grail legend,
From Ritual to Romance
, rather than directly from the stories. Nevertheless, Eliot’s appropriation of the
imagery of the desolation caused by the First World War shows the continued relevance of the Arthurian stories to the twentieth century. The same fusion of the traditional with the modern makes the
three book-length poems by Edward Arlington Robinson of timeless relevance. The most traditional is
Tristram
(1927), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize, whilst the earlier
Merlin
(1917) and especially the highly spiritual
Lancelot
(1920) show the impact of World War I. Robinson, like Tennyson, sees the Arthurian heroes as seeking impossible ideals, which are more
likely to be the cause of destruction than of salvation.

Attanasio, A.A.
(b. 1951),
The Dragon and the Unicorn
(UK, 1994);
Arthor
(UK, 1995; US as
The Eagle and the Sword
, 1997);
The Wolf and the
Crown
(US, 1998; UK as
The Perilous Order
, 1999);
The Serpent and the Grail
(US, 1999) (f)

The four books follow, to a degree, the basic pattern of Arthur’s life, with a fifth-century setting, but Merlin, Morgan le Fay and the Grail receive a cosmic
pseudo-scientific explanation. The ‘Dragon’ is the sentient power of the Earth, whilst the ‘unicorn’ is a spiritual Sun-being that takes on unicorn form when in touch with
the Earth’s dragon power. There are two opposing energy forces: the Fire Lords, or angels, who strive for order and progress and seek to stave off the impending Dark Ages in Europe, and the
demons, one of whom, Lailoken,
becomes the magus Merlin, the focus of the first book. His teacher, Bleys, was a Chinese pilgrim who has harnessed the power of the unicorn and
become immortal. Arthor, or Aquila Regalia Thor, whose youth is covered in the second book, is none other than the Celtic hero Cuchulain, reborn in exchange for Uther Pendragon’s soul.
Unaware of his origins, Arthor is a violent, un-self-redeeming bully who rebels against his earthly destiny; it requires the intervention of Merlin to keep him on the true path. In the subsequent
volumes, but especially in
The Wolf and the Crown
, Attanasio follows the Arthurian legend as we know it, but within his cosmological framework, portraying a demigodlike Arthor striving to
keep order in a world of cataclysmic change.