and here we have the obligatory end-of-the-class post.

As my wildly uncreative title suggests this is mostly just going to be me rambling about my thoughts on this class and Arthur himself. To be totally honest this class has been the best part of my semester. I've loved King Arthur for as long as I can remember. 

"The Lady of Shalott" was my first introduction to any form of Arthurian legend and I still love her. I know she can be seen as Ellie sees her, as a whiny girl who killed herself over a guy, but that's not totally true. In Le Morte D'Arthur, yeah, I can see it, but in Tennyson's poem she's different.  I prefer to look at Elaine as Tennyson wrote her. I like to see her as a woman who made a choice for herself, even if it landed her dead in front of the court at Camelot.

                                                   

I really like that this course didn't just focus on one or two major works but instead coverage a whole range of readings. There's more than enough information in Le Morte D'Arthur and The Once and Future King to last the entire term. I appreciated seeing how different authors approached King Arthur (or rather how they approached his knights, because a lot of the stories, particularly the more famous ones, don't actually feature Arthur). 

Pulling in the older works, like The Latin Chronicles and Geoffrey of Monmouth, the stuff that actually makes an attempt at being historical helped me place Arthur and Camelot in history. Seeing how "Lancelot, or the Knight of the Cart" was written for the women who desperately wanted some sort of knight in shining armor helps explain (at least a little) why Lance and Gwen became such a focus point in Arthurian legend (even if I hate it). 

"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" is a hard one for me to wrap my mind around, solely because of the last tiny part. That sash was meant to be a badge of shame and dishonor. Instead everyone starts to wear them. It's a sadly accurate representation of a culture that's still functioning that way, even today. 

I very much enjoyed a lot of the stuff we read later in the class. They're modern novels. It's easier to pick up at random spare moments and still be able to understand what's happening. Even if Avalon High sometimes made me want to beat my head off the wall it wasn't difficult to read through. It took a bit for me to get into Mists of Avalon  but I think part of that was that I was just confused as to where we were in the story. Knight Life, even when it hopped all over the place was just so weirdly entertaining to me that I didn't notice the awkward time jumps. 

As for the questions that have been posed by some people I think my favourite characters remains Morgan. I know she's gotten some pretty hellish representations but I've always loved her and I think I always will. I love Morgan when she's on the side of good and I love her when she's on the side of evil. I love seeing Morgan start out good and end up on the dark side. I really love her when you have no idea where she stands. (Aka Morgan of Gerald Morris' adaptations, she's the greatest). 

Leave it to Katie McGrath to make bat-shit crazy look good. Helena Bonham Carter looks like she should have a bird nesting in her hair. (And why do they all have dark hair?)

Gawain has always been up there as one of my favourite characters as well. I realize now that that's probably because he too was well represented in the book series written by Gerald Morris. I'm starting to see a trend. Whoops. Gawain for this course was a bit lack-luster to me. He's not in as much as I would like and when he is I'm just not as attached to him as I could be. 

Anyway, I realize this post is painfully long. I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for a good class! 

Goodbye my friends, I'm out!