First full-length exploration of the Arthurian legend in Scotland.
Scotland’s importance in Arthurian legend is undeniable: it was the traditional homeland of key figures such as Gawain; its landscape is still dotted with Arthurian associations, and many modern attempts to locate a historical Arthur end up in Scotland. Nevertheless, Scotland’s complex relationship with Arthurian legend has been surprisingly neglected, and this volume is the first to be dedicated to it. The essays cover the period between the appearance inca. 1136 of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s
Historia Regum Britanniae and the accession of James VI to the English throne as James I in 1603 – five centuries of precarious Scottish independence during which the relationship of the Scots and the English, as refracted through Arthurian legend, is at its most turbulent and changeable.
The approaches are both literary and historical, covering such topics as the direct responses of early Scottish historians to the challenges set by Geoffrey’s work, Arthurian literature written in Scots, the circulation of other Arthurian material in Scotland, and the portrayal of Scotland and the Scots in English and French Arthurian texts.
Table of Content
Introduction: `Tartan Arthur?’ [with Nicola Royan] –
Introduction: `Tartan Arthur?’ [with Rhiannon Purdie] – Nicola Royan
Where does Britain end? The Reception of Geoffrey of Monmouth in Scotland and Wales – Juliette Wood
The Testimony of Writing: Pierre de Langtoft and the Appeals to History, 1291-1306 – Thea Summerfield
The Fine Art of Faint Praise in Older Scots Historiography – Nicola Royan
The
Roman de Fergus Parody or Pastiche?/I> – Tony Hunt
Lancelot of the Laik: Sources, Genre and Reception – Elizabeth Archibald
Sir Lamwell in Scotland – Priscilla Bawcutt
The Search for Scottishness in
Golagros and Gawane –
`Of an Uncouthe Stede’: the Scottish Knight in Middle English Arthurian Romances –
Dead Butchers and Fiend-like Queens: Literary and Political History in
The Misfortunes of Arthur and Macbeth – Andrew King
Reinventing Arthur: Reresentations of the Matter of Britain in Medieval Scotland and Catalonia – Sergi Mainer
About the author
PRISCILLA BAWCUTT, honorary professor at the University of Liverpool, was one of the most distinguished contemporary scholars of Older Scots. She edited The Poems of William Dunbar for the Association of Scottlish Literary Studies (1997/8), and The Shorter Poems of Gavin Douglas for the Scottish Text Society (revised 2003); she has written very widely and deeply on all aspects of Older Scots literature, includingher foundational study, Gavin Douglas (1976). IAN C. CUNNINGHAM, former Keeper of Manuscripts at the National Library of Scotland, has published extensively on Latin and Older Scots manuscripts, and edited and translated Theophrastus
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