Romance Flashcards
How is courtly love transformed in Arthurian Romance?
Romantic love is viewed as a destructive force, sin that must be atoned for.
The adulterous love between Lancelot and Guinevere ultimately leads to the downfall of King Arthur’s Kingdom.
What are the three main (re)tellings of Arthurian Romance? (Chrétien de Troyes, the Vulgate Cycle, and Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur)
Lancelot the Knight of the Cart
Le Morte d Arthur
Lancelot grail cycle
What different cultural traditions coexist in Excalibur?
A mixture of old and new world ideas like Merlin’s mysticism and traditions of Christianity. Relationships like Lord/Knight and God/worshipper.
What is the Legend of the Fisher King? How is it represented in the film Excalibur?
In the Legend of the Fisher King, the king is incapacitated by an injury, which causes the land to turn into a wasteland.
A knight must go on a quest to restore health to the king, and thus to the land.
In Excalibur, the adulterous act between Lancelot and Genevieve causes Arthur to fall ill, and his land suffers because of it. Both stories need the holy grail to restore the health of the king and the land.
