Skip to main content

This Blog and Me

About This Blog

Welcome and thank you for visiting my page.  I created this page as a learning guide for others, even as I am learning myself.  I found that the large volume of Arthurian literature was intimidating especially when you start adding different theories and even multiple versions of the same story.  I can't even think of a good parallel to compare it too.  Despite being intimidating ,there was something about the way it grows over time that appealed to me.  After reading a few stories, I was hooked.   I wanted to provide a way for others to learn and to help them sift through the mountains of stories, poetry, history, historical theory, commentary, and scholarly journals.  There was no road map to learning this material.  Even the books that purport to guide beginners get bogged down in scribal details and translation notes.  I felt there was a way to disseminate a nice amount of pertinent information with out overloading the average reader.  

My target audience is beginners and amateurs in Arthurian subjects.  I am an amateur enthusiast as well.  I want to make this known because I am deliberately not including every scrap of information on any given subject.  I am giving enough information to be explanatory and educational.  This page will not satisfy a lot of the better informed students and educators but I do accept constructive advice from anyone willing to follow along and help.

Because I do not have any intentions of creating a college level journal and my target is a general audience, I do not intend on listing sources in most cases.  I, of course, will give credit to certain authors when relaying their research or when addressing a certain book or journal.  However, some information may be relayed from any manner of sources and I may not always be able to identify certain translators, or products of independent research.  I will say that I will not be providing any independent research of my own and, as such, do not take credit for any translations, research, or ideas found within this blog.  If you are a scholar or educator and you feel I have marked something  inappropriately, please just let me know and I will take pains to correct it.  If you have something constructive you would like to add, I urge you to do so.  Maybe one day this can be a community of interested amateurs.  

I welcome comments and discussion on anything Arthurian.  I am not an expert and have not read everything. I can't even say I have read most, but I steadily move through the material on my own and am way ahead of this blog.    For that reason I welcome others to join regardless of your education level because the main function of this site is learning.  Also, because I hope to attract a disparate group of readers, I hope that all commentary remains constructive.  No "trolls" are welcome unless Arthur is slaying them. 

My name is Joe and I have a degree in computer animation/ interdisciplinary studies A.B. Studio Art from the University of Georgia.  I currently do nothing related to my degree but instead manage a small business in Georgia.  I am married and have a 3 year old boy and pursue Arthurian subjects for personal education and enjoyment, I enjoy writing and also continue (sometimes) to produce art the old fashioned way.

Thank you for visiting,
Joe

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Chretien de Troyes Part 5: The Knight of the Cart

The Knight of the Cart As we move to the final two of Chretien's works,  The Knight of the Cart  and  Perceval , you will discover two interesting things.  First, these last two works were unfinished by Chretien.  Second, both of these works would become his two most important creations with far reaching influence of both distance and time!   In regards to this work in particular, I could safely say that most people have heard of Lancelot and some of those have even heard of Guinevere and their affair.  Could the same be said of Sir Kay and Sir Bedevere the two warriors that have been tied with Arthur since some of the earliest stories?  Nope.  Probably not.  And yet, this is the very first mention of Lancelot while Sir Kay and Sir Bedivere continue as characters from well before Lancelot to current times.  Why is this? Well, this is probably the sauciest of Chretien's works.  Each of his works up to this point invol...

Chretien de Troyes Part 4: Yvain, or The Knight with the Lion

Yvain, or The Knight with the Lion We now shift from Cliges, what you now should know as my least favorite of Chretien's Arthurian tales, to Yvain, my favorite.  My reasons are admittedly weak and without any real critical merit, but they are my opinions all the same.  I will, however defend my opinions below and you can judge for yourself.  First, though, we should do a quick review of the material. The tale begins in Arthur's court where a knight named Calogrenant is telling a tale of his own defeat that he has kept secret many years.  He tells of a giant that directed him to a spring. When he arrived at this spring he sprinkled some water on a stone using the dipper provided.  As he does this a huge storm crops up and a knight rides out and shamefully defeats him in combat.  Of course when Arthur's court hears of this they all wish to ride out to find this wondrous spring.  Yvain, Calegrenant's own cousin, wants to avenge him and instead sneak...

Update: Chretien de Troyes

Update Hello all.  After re-reading some of my earlier writing on Chretien de Troyes' works I feel that I am not handling the material well.  As the works get longer, it no longer makes sense to write everything that happens in the works episode by episode.  Chretien's works are 80 pages on average which causes me to do two pages of pure summary before I even discuss the work.  Some of the upcoming works such as the Perceval continuations and the Vulgate Lancelot make these works, and even modern epics, pale in comparison.  Reading multiple pages of non-stop summary makes for pretty dry reading.  It was so terrible that I decided to re-write my article on The Knight of the Cart before even posting it.  In retrospect I should have had more insightful discussions rather than summary.  I need to reach back to my college days and reconsider how to approach the material.  I also am not having much fun doing it this way. Moving forward I am ...