The Arthurian legend closes with a promise: On a distant day, when his country calls, the king will return. His lost realm will be regained, and his shattered dream of an ideal world will, at last, be realized. This collection of original essays explores the issue of return in the modern Arthurian legend. With an Introduction by noted scholar Raymond H. Thompson and 13 essays by authors from the fields of literature, art history, film history, and folklore, this collection reveals the flexibility of the legend. Just as the modern legend takes the form current to its generation, the myth of return generates a new legend with each telling. As these authors show, return can come in the form of a noble king or a Caribbean immigrant, with the mystery of an art theft or a dying boy's dream.

The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain vereint erstmals wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse zu Multilingualität und Interkulturalität im mittelalterlichen Britannien und bietet mehr als 600 fundierte Einträge zu Schlüsselpersonen, Zusammenhängen und Einflüssen in der Literatur vom fünften bis sechzehnten Jahrhundert. - Einzigartiger multilingualer, interkultureller Ansatz und die neuesten wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisse. Das gesamte Mittelalter und die Bandbreite literarischer Sprachen werden abgedeckt. - Über 600 fundierte, verständliche Einträge zu Schlüsselpersonen, Texten, kritischen Debatten, Methoden, kulturellen Zusammenhängen sowie verwandte Terminologie. - Repräsentiert die gesamte Literatur der Britischen Inseln, einschließlich Alt- und Mittelenglisch, das frühe Schottland, die Anglonormannen, Nordisch, Latein und Französisch in Britannien, die keltische Literatur in Wales, Irland, Schottland und Cornwall. - Beeindruckende chronologische Darstellung, von der Invasion der Sachsen bis zum 5. Jahrhundert und weiter bis zum Übergang zur frühen Moderne im 16. Jahrhundert. - Beleuchtet die Überbleibsel mittelalterlicher britischer Literatur, darunter auch Manuskripte und frühe Drucke, literarische Stätten und Zusammenhänge in puncto Herstellung, Leistung und Rezeption sowie erzählerische Transformation und intertextuelle Verbindungen in dieser Zeit.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Queen Victoria’s favourite poet, commanded a wider readership than any other of his time. His ascendancy was neither the triumph of pure genius nor an accident of history:he skilfully crafted his own career and his relationships with his audience. Fame and recognition came, lavishly and in abundance, but the hunger for more never left him. Like many successful Victorians, he was a provincial determined to make good in the capital while retaining his regional strengths. One of eleven children, he remained close to his extended family and never lost his Lincolnshire accent.Resolving never to be anything except ‘a poet’, he wore his hair long, smoked incessantly and sported a cloak and wide-brimmed Spanish hat. Tennyson ranged widely in his poetry, turning his interests in geology, evolution and Arthurian legend into verse, but much of his workrelates to his personal life. The tragic loss of Arthur Hallam, a brilliant friend and fellow Apostle at Cambridge, fed into some of his most successful and best-known poems. It took Tennyson seventeen years to complete his great elegy for Hallam, In Memoriam, a work which established his fame and secured his appointment as Poet Laureate. The poet who wrote The Lady of Shalott and The Charge of the Light Brigade has become a permanent part of our culture. This enjoyable and thoughtful new biography shows him as a Romantic as well as a Victorian, exploring both the poems and Tennyson’s attempts at play writing, as well as the pressures of his age and the personal relationships that made the man.

First published in 1938, this study explores the reception of the mythology of King Arthur by modern poets and playwrights. More specifically, the author explores the lineage of the legendary material since the first edition of Malory in 1485, exploring a vast range of artists who have made use of it: Spenser, Milton and Dryden, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Hardy, Matthew Arnold, and even Wagner. The conclusion is that although the myths have never occupied as central a place as the Classical or Biblical heritage, nonetheless the tales of King Arthur will continue to encapsulate romantic ideals and aspirations.

In his distinctive work, Christopher Scarf explores the writings of the three most prominent Oxford Inklings - Charles Williams (1886-1945), C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), and J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) - to reveal and contrast their conceptions of the ideal of 'kingship'; divine, human, and mythological. As practising Christians, the faith of all three writers was central to their literary and personal visions of kingship, society, love, beauty, justice and power. Scarf investigates their beliefin God as Creator and heavenly King, opinions on the nature of His very being, and the way in which all believed the Creator to be unique rather than one among many. The relationship between the earthly and heavenly King is considered, as well as the extent to which the writers contend that earthly kings are God's viceregents, act with His authority, and are duty-bound to establish and sustain just and joyous societies. Examining the writings of all three men in detail, Scarf also highlights the covert evidence of their lives and personalities which may be discovered in their texts. An understanding of the authors' individual but overlapping views of the essential meaning of Kingship, and their personalities and early lives, will enrichthe reader's appreciation of their created worlds. This volume provides a unique focus on Kingship and the Christian beliefs of three well-loved writers, and will be of interest to any reader seeking a fuller understanding of the individuals and their works.