The best part of the poem in my opinion is when Sir Bedivere goes before King Arthur for the second time after not throwing Excalibur into the lake and King Arthur threatening to kill Sir Bedivere if he does not do it the third time even though the King is dying from a mortal wound. I kept thinking, "what kind of power Arthur had that allowed him to keep on living with his body being so weak and injured?"
The ending is also a very important part that i feel will eventually be brought back up later in the class and possibly in the readings. At the end, the poem says that the King vanishes into the light and the sun rises to bring the new year. The way that I see this, Arthur does not die, but is taken somewhere to be healed and then brought back in some point in the future to be king again.
Reading about Arthur was a nice change. Hopefully Arthur is brought back in some of our future readings.
I completely agree that the ending of this poem is important and will come up again. Since our class is about the Once and FUTURE King; him dying kind of stops the "future" part from happening. With these next readings bringing Arthur back to modern America, I think Avalon's healing powers are quite necessary to Arthurian legend.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. I am truly looking forward to these readings coming up
DeleteI have come to think that after Sir Bedivere returns for the second time having not thrown Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake yet, he has royally pissed King Arthur off, he cannot rest easy until it is returned to the lake and properly disposed of. This kind of power to stay alive through a mortal wound until the deed is done shows that some outside sorcery may have helped him on his way.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting way of looking at it. I, too, was thinking that it might be magic. I also thought that maybe he was just strong.
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