Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

King Arthur

King Arthur is the figure at the heart of the Arthurian legends. He is said to be the son of Uther Pendragon and Ygraine of Cornwall. One of the questions that has occupied those interested in King Arthur is whether or not he is a historical figure.

In early Latin chronicles he is presented as a military leader, the dux bellorum. In later romance he is presented as a king and emperor. Though there have been numerous historical novels that try to put Arthur into a sixth-century setting, it is the legendary figure of the late Middle Ages who has most captured the imagination.

Geoffrey Ashe wrote:
If the name of King Arthur is mentioned, I suppose what comes to mind is not so much one person as a whole array of characters and themes, a montage so to speak. Of course we do think first of the King, the magnificent monarch of a glorified or idealized medieval realm. But we think also of his Queen, of the fair and wayward Guinevere, we think of his enchanter, Merlin, who presided over his birth, who set him on the throne, who established him there in the early and travelled days of his reign. There were the knights of the Round Table, vowed to the highest ideals of chivalry, and the greatest of them, Sir Lancelot, who, of course, has atragic love affair with the Queen. There is another great love story, that of Tristan and Isolde, the theme of Wagner's Opera.

We think of the place where these people assembled, Camelot, Arthur's magnificent, personal castle and capital and then, there are stranger things; the story of the quest for the Holy Grail, giving a spiritual dimension to the whole story and there is magic. Not only the magic of Merlin but the magic also of his strange, ambiguous student, the women, the enchantress, Morgan LaFay. And at the end is the tragedy of Arthur's downfall, his passing away at the isle of Avalon and another mystery that we do not know what really happened to him that he was said to be immortal, that one day he would return and restore the golden age in his country.

Now, of course, this is all a realm of the imagination conceived by great authors in the middle ages and put in medieval garb. But perhaps few people realize what a very great realm of the imagination it is, how vast a literature this has been. In the middle ages this was the great theme of creative writing in poetry and prose. Not only in England, but preeminently in France and in Germany there were romances of Arthur. In fact, in every language of Christendom at that time.

more on this article


For more on King Arthur try:

Arthurian Legends

King Arthur

Geoffrey of Monmouth

Back to the Library