MALA 60253 King Arthur Meets Queen Victoria: Arthurian Literature in the Victorian Age
An examination of the roots of current American interest in Arthurian legend in Queen Victoria reign. Students will read important literary works, including Alfred Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King, William Morris's Defense of Guinevere, and Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and explore the historical and political conditions surrounding the 19th-century medieval revival. The course concludes with a screening of Excalibur (1981) and discussion of its indebtedness to the Victorian era.