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The Scots and Medieval Arthurian Legend
Author(s): Rhiannon Purdie (Author), Nicola Royan (Author)
- Publisher: D. S. Brewer
- Publication Date: 28 April 2005
- Language: English
- Print length: 176 pages
- ISBN-10: 1843840367
- ISBN-13: 9781843840367
Book Description
First full-length exploration of the Arthurian legend in Scotland. Scotland’s importance in Arthurian legend is undeniable: it was the traditional homeland of key figures such as Gawain; its landscape is still dotted with Arthurian associations, and many modern attempts to locate a historical Arthur end up in Scotland. Nevertheless, Scotland’s complex relationship with Arthurian legend has been surprisingly neglected, and this volume is the first to be dedicated to it. The essays cover the period between the appearance inca. 1136 of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae and the accession of James VI to the English throne as James I in 1603 – five centuries of precarious Scottish independence during which the relationship of theScots and the English, as refracted through Arthurian legend, is at its most turbulent and changeable. The approaches are both literary and historical, covering such topics as the direct responses of early Scottish historians to the challenges set by Geoffrey’s work, Arthurian literature written in Scots, the circulation of other Arthurian material in Scotland, and the portrayal of Scotland and the Scots in English and French Arthurian texts.
Editorial Reviews
Review
A welcome addition to our knowledge of Scottish Arthurian literature. — MEDIEVAL REVIEW, October 2007
Succeeds in offering an impressive range of illuminating and persuasive readings. —
ENGLISH STUDIES, vol. 88, no. 6, December 2007About the Author
ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD is Professor of English Studies at Durham University, and Principal of St Cuthbert’s Society.
PRISCILLA BAWCUTT, honorary professor at the University of Liverpool, was one of the most distinguished contemporary scholars of Older Scots. She edited
The Poems of William Dunbar for the Association of Scottlish Literary Studies (1997/8), and The Shorter Poems of Gavin Douglas for the Scottish Text Society (revised 2003); she has written very widely and deeply on all aspects of Older Scots literature, includingher foundational study, Gavin Douglas (1976). IAN C. CUNNINGHAM, former Keeper of Manuscripts at the National Library of Scotland, has published extensively on Latin and Older Scots manuscripts, and edited and translated Theophrastus
