Witch Week: Arthurian literature

Witch Week this year is all about the Arthurian literature.  I hope you're following Lory at Emerald City Book Review to read the guest bloggers, enter the giveaway, and all that good stuff.  The readalong is of Kazuo Ishiguro's Buried Giant, which I read a couple of years ago.  So I decided not to read along, but I did really like the book, and if you wish to see my thoughts you can read my review.



I've read a bit of Arthurian literature during the life of Howling Frog, so I thought it might be useful to collect some of the links.  If you're interested in reading some of the older material, this might be helpful.  Some random links:

Yvain, by Chretien de Troyes
Poor Heinrich, by Hermann von Aue
The Fall of Arthur, by J. R. R. Tolkien
Ritual and Romance, by Jessie Weston (old folkloric speculation, now totally discredited, but fun to read)


In 2014, I ran a year-long Arthurian challenge and read some great stuff.  Here is what I said at the time:


The legends and stories of King Arthur and his knights have been popular for over a thousand years, and during that time the stories have changed and developed into a tangle of related tales with wild offshoots all over the place.    Arthur himself may or may not have really existed, but if he did, he wouldn't have been anything like the king in the stories we know now.  Instead, Arthur has served as a figure to which we can pin our ideas about loyalty, love, and duty; the total lack of historical fact lets us embroider as we please and remake him in whatever guise we prefer.
  1. Nennius' Historia Brittonum
  2. Erec et Enide, by Chretien de Troyes
  3. Cliges, by Chretien de Troyes
  4. Lancelot, by Chretien de Troyes
  5. Culhwch and Olwen
  6. The Romance of Tristan, by Beroul 
  7. The Quest of the Holy Grail
  8.  Arthur's Britain, by Leslie Alcock (history)
  9. Arthuriad, by Charles Williams
  10. Tristran, by Thomas of Britain
  11. Tristan, by Gottfried von Strassburg
  12. Parzival, by Wolfram von Eschenbach
  13. The Morte D'Arthur, by Sir Thomas Malory
And still I have so much more I could read!  I hope readers will find this helpful.  And if you want to know my all-time favorite, it's The Quest of the Holy Grail.



Comments

  1. As it happens, I have a large number of these texts and studies, but there are a few I never got around to acquiring, let alone reading! An excellent list, though it would require half a lifetime to get through I feel. :)

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  2. Indeed it would take a lifetime to study them properly! As it is, I only read them a bit and it still took a long time. :)

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  3. Amazing list! I have only read Parzival but I definitely want to check out The Quest of the Holy Grail at least.

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  4. Oh, you have GOT to read the Quest. I mean, I say that to everybody, but you do! It's wonderfully bonkers and fascinating.

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