King Arthur Totally Explained

Everything about King Arthur totally explained

King Arthur is a fabled British leader who, according to various medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against the Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and his historical existence is debated and disputed by modern historians. The sparse historical background to Arthur is gleaned from various histories, including those of Gildas, Nennius, and the Annales Cambriae. Arthur's name also occurs in early poetic sources such as Y Gododdin.
   The legendary Arthur developed as a figure of international interest largely through the popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of England). Some Welsh and Breton tales and poems about Arthur date, however, from before Geoffrey's time. These are usually termed "pre-Galfridian" texts (from the Latin form of Geoffrey, Galfridus). In these works, Arthur appears either as a great warrior defending Britain from human and supernatural enemies, or as a magical figure of folklore, sometimes associated with the Welsh Otherworld, Annwn.
   Geoffrey's Historia, completed in 1138, is often fanciful and imaginative, though it's unclear how much he invented and how much he adapted from sources now lost. Geoffrey depicted Arthur as a king of Britain who defeated the Saxons and established an empire over the British Isles, Iceland, Norway, and Gaul. Many incidents that are now an integral part of the Arthurian story occur in Geoffrey's Historia, including those involving Arthur's father Uther Pendragon, adviser Merlin, birth at Tintagel, and death at Avalon. Texts written after Geoffrey are often termed "Galfridian" or "post-Galfridian" texts because they utilise his narrative and characters. The 12th-century French writer Chrétien de Troyes, who added Lancelot and the Holy Grail to the story, began the genre of Arthurian romance that became a significant strand of medieval literature. In these French cycles, the narrative focus often shifts from King Arthur himself to other characters, such as various Knights of the Round Table. Medieval Arthurian romance culminated in Thomas Malory's Morte D'Arthur cycle, published in 1485, which defined the legend's form in English. In the 19th century, interest in Arthur was revived by Alfred Lord Tennyson with his Idylls of the King, prompting a wave of literary and artistic works inspired by the legend, including paintings by the Pre-Raphaelites. Later reworkings of the Arthurian legends include Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and T. H. White's The Once and Future King.
   The themes and events of the Arthurian story vary from text to text. They include the recognition of Arthur as king through the Sword in the Stone episode and his defence of Britain against the Saxons. Based at the castle of Camelot, Arthur receives the advice of the wizard Merlin, and founds the chivalrous fellowship of knights known as the Round Table. He wields the sword Excalibur, triumphs in battle, and perishes in a final confrontation with Mordred. Recurring plot elements include the adultery of Lancelot and Queen Guinevere, the quest for the Holy Grail, and the promise of King Arthur's messianic return. Medieval texts also recount the adventures of Arthur's knights, among them Kay, Gawain, Lancelot, Percival and Galahad.

Historical truth

The historical basis for the King Arthur legend has long been debated by scholars. One school of thought, citing entries in the Historia Brittonum and Annales Cambriae, sees Arthur as a genuine historical figure, a Romano-British leader who fought against the invading Anglo-Saxons sometime in the late 5th to early 6th century. The Historia Brittonum ("History of the Britons"), a 9th-century Latin historical compilation attributed in some late manuscripts to a Welsh cleric called Nennius, lists twelve battles that Arthur fought. These culminate in the Battle of Mons Badonicus, or Mount Badon, where he's said to have single-handedly killed 960 men. Recent studies, however, question the reliability of the Historia Brittonum as a source for the history of this period.
   The other text that seems to support the case for Arthur's historical existence is the 10th-century Annales Cambriae ("Welsh Annals"), which also links Arthur with the Battle of Mount Badon. The Annales dates this battle to 516–518, and also mentions the Battle of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut were both killed, dated to 537–539. These details have often been used to bolster confidence in the Historia's account and to confirm that Arthur really did fight at Mount Badon. Problems have been identified, however, with using this source to support the Historia Brittonum's account. The latest research shows that the Annales Cambriae was based on a chronicle begun in the late 8th century in Wales. Additionally, the complex textual history of the Annales Cambriae precludes any certainty that the Arthurian annals were added to it even that early. They were more likely added at some point in the 10th century and may never have existed in any earlier set of annals. The Mount Badon entry probably derived from the Historia Brittonum.
   This lack of convincing early evidence is the reason many recent historians exclude Arthur from their accounts of post-Roman Britain. In the view of Thomas Charles-Edwards, "at this stage of the enquiry, one can only say that there may well have been an historical Arthur [but…] the historian can as yet say nothing of value about him". These modern admissions of ignorance are a relatively recent trend; earlier generations of historians were less sceptical. Historian John Morris made the putative reign of Arthur the organising principle of his history of sub-Roman Britain and Ireland, The Age of Arthur (1973). Even so, he found little to say of an historic Arthur.
   Partly in reaction to such theories, another school of thought emerged which argued that Arthur had no historical existence at all. Morris's Age of Arthur prompted archaeologist Nowell Myres to observe that "no figure on the borderline of history and mythology has wasted more of the historian's time". Gildas' 6th-century polemic De Excidio Britanniae ("On the Ruin of Britain"), written within living memory of Mount Badon, mentions that battle but doesn't mention Arthur. Arthur isn't mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle or named in any surviving manuscript written between 400 and 820. He is absent from Bede's early-8th-century Ecclesiastical History of the English People, another major early source for post-Roman history that mentions Mount Badon. Historian David Dumville has written: "I think we can dispose of him [Arthur] quite briefly. He owes his place in our history books to a 'no smoke without fire' school of thought... The fact of the matter is that there's no historical evidence about Arthur; we must reject him from our histories and, above all, from the titles of our books."
   Some academics argue that Arthur was originally a fictional hero of folklore – or even a half-forgotten Celtic deity – who became credited with real deeds in the distant past. They cite parallels with figures such as the Kentish totemic horse-gods Hengest and Horsa, who later became historicised. Bede ascribed to these legendary figures a historical role in the 5th-century Anglo-Saxon conquest of eastern Britain. It isn't even certain that Arthur was considered a king in the early texts. Neither the Historia nor the Annales calls him "rex": the former calls him instead "dux" or "dux bellorum" (leader of battles).
   Historical documents for the post-Roman period are scarce, so a definitive answer to the question of Arthur's historical existence is unlikely. Sites and places have been identified as "Arthurian" since the 12th century, but archaeology can confidently reveal names only through inscriptions found in secure contexts. The so-called "Arthur stone," discovered in 1998 among the ruins at Tintagel Castle in Cornwall in securely dated 6th-century contexts, created a brief stir but proved irrelevant. Other inscriptional evidence for Arthur is tainted with the suggestion of forgery. Although several historical figures have been proposed as the basis for Arthur, no convincing evidence for these identifications has emerged.

Name

The origin of the name Arthur remains a matter of debate. Some suggest it's derived from the Latin family name Artorius, of obscure and contested etymology. Others propose a derivation from Welsh arth (earlier art), meaning "bear", suggesting art-ur, "bear-man", (earlier *Arto-uiros) is the original form, although there are difficulties with this theory. It may be relevant to this debate that Arthur's name appears as Arthur, or Arturus, in early Latin Arthurian texts, never as Artorius. However, this may not say anything about the origin of the name Arthur, as Artorius would regularly become Art(h)ur when borrowed into Welsh; all it would mean, as John Koch has pointed out, is that the surviving Latin references to a historical Arthur (if he was called Artorius and really existed) must date from after the sixth century. An alternative theory links the name Arthur to Arcturus, the brightest star in the constellation Boötes, near Ursa Major or the Great Bear. Classical Latin Arcturus would also have become Art(h)ur when borrowed into Welsh, and its brightness and position in the sky led people to regard it as the "guardian of the bear" and the "leader" of the other stars in Boötes. The exact significance of such etymologies is unclear. It is often assumed that an Artorius derivation would mean that the legends of Arthur had a genuine historical core, but recent studies suggest that this assumption may not be well founded. By contrast, a derivation of Arthur from Arcturus might be taken to indicate a non-historical origin for Arthur, but Toby Griffen has suggested it was an alternative name for a historical Arthur designed to appeal to Latin-speakers.

Medieval literary traditions

The creator of the familiar literary persona of Arthur was Geoffrey of Monmouth, with his pseudo-historical Historia Regum Britanniae ("History of the Kings of Britain"), written in the 1130s. The textual sources for Arthur are usually divided into those written before Geoffrey's Historia (known as "pre-Galfridian" texts, from the Latin form of Geoffrey, Galfridus) and those written afterwards, which couldn't avoid his influence (Galfridian, or post-Galfridian, texts).

Pre-Galfridian traditions

The earliest literary references to Arthur come from Welsh and Breton sources. There have been few attempts to define the nature and character of Arthur in the pre-Galfridian tradition as a whole, rather than in a single text or text/story-type. One recent academic survey that does attempt this, by Thomas Green, identifies three key strands to the portrayal of Arthur in this earliest material. The first is that he was a peerless warrior who functioned as the monster-hunting protector of Britain from all internal and external threats. Some of these are human threats, such as the Saxons he fights in the Historia Brittonum, but the majority are supernatural, including werewolves, giant cat-monsters, destructive divine boars, dragons, giants and witches. The second is that the pre-Galfridian Arthur was a figure of folklore (particularly topographic or onomastic folklore) and localized magical wonder-tales, the leader of a band of superhuman heroes who live in the wilds of the landscape. The third and final strand is that the early Welsh Arthur had a close connection with the Welsh Otherworld, Annwn. On the one hand, he launches assaults on Otherworldly fortresses in search of treasure and frees their prisoners. On the other, his warband in the earliest sources includes former pagan gods and his wife, and his possessions are clearly Otherworldly in origin.
   One of the most famous Welsh poetic references to Arthur comes in the collection of heroic death-songs known as Y Gododdin ("The Gododdin"), attributed to the 6th-century poet Aneirin. In one stanza, the bravery of a warrior who slew 300 enemies is praised, but it's then noted that despite this "he was no Arthur", that's to say his feats can't compare to the valour of Arthur. Y Gododdin is known only from a 13th-century manuscript, so it's impossible to determine whether this passage is original or a later interpolation: 9th or 10th century dates are often proposed for it, but John Koch's view that the passage dates from a 7th century or earlier version is regarded by scholars as unproven. Several poems attributed to Taliesin, a poet said to have lived in the 6th century, also refer to Arthur, although these all probably date from between the 8th and 12th centuries. They include Kadeir Teyrnon ("The Chair of the Prince"), which refers to "Arthur the Blessed", Preiddeu Annwn ("The Spoils of the Annwn"), which recounts an expedition of Arthur to the Otherworld, and Marwnat vthyr pen[dragon] ("The Elegy of Uthyr Pen[dragon]"), which refers to Arthur's valour and is suggestive of a father-son relationship for Arthur and Uthyr that pre-dates Geoffrey of Monmouth.
   Other early Welsh Arthurian texts include a poem found in the Black Book of Carmarthen, Pa gur yv y porthaur? ("What man is the gatekeeper?"). This takes the form of a dialogue between Arthur and the gatekeeper of a fortress he wishes to enter, in which Arthur recounts the names and deeds of himself and his men, notably Cei and Bedwyr. The Welsh prose tale Culhwch and Olwen (c. 1100), included in the modern Mabinogion collection, has a much longer list of more than 200 of Arthur's men, though Cei and Bedwyr again take a central place. The story as a whole tells of Arthur helping his kinsman Culhwch win the hand of Olwen, daughter of Ysbaddaden Chief-Giant, by completing a series of apparently impossible tasks, including the hunt for the great semi-divine boar Twrch Trwyth. This latter tale is also referenced in the 9th-century Historia Brittonum, with the boar there named Troy(n)t. Finally, Arthur is referenced numerous times in the Welsh Triads, a collection of short summaries of Welsh tradition and legend which are classified into groups of three linked characters or episodes in order to assist recall. The later manuscripts of the Triads are partly derivative from Geoffrey of Monmouth and later Continental traditions, but the earliest ones show no such influence and are usually agreed to refer to pre-existing Welsh traditions. Even in these, however, Arthur's court has started to embody legendary Britain as a whole, with "Arthur's Court" sometimes substituted for "The Island of Britain" in the formula "Three XXX of the Island of Britain". While it isn't clear from the Historia Brittonum and the Annales Cambriae that Arthur was even considered a king, by the time Culhwch and Olwen and the Triads were written he'd become Penteyrnedd yr Ynys hon, "Chief of the Lords of this Island", the overlord of Wales, Cornwall and the North.
   In addition to the pre-Galfridian Welsh poems and tales, Arthur appears in some other early Latin texts. In particular, Arthur appears in a number of well known vitae ("Lives") of post-Roman saints, none of which are now generally considered to be reliable historical sources (the earliest probably dates from the 11th century). According to the Life of Saint Gildas, written in the early twelfth century by Caradoc of Llancarfan, Arthur is said to have killed Gildas' brother Hueil and to have rescued his wife Gwenhwyfar from Glastonbury. In the Life of Saint Cadoc, written around 1100 or a little before by Lifris of Llancarfan, the saint gives protection to a man who killed three of Arthur's soldiers, and Arthur demands a herd of cattle as wergeld for his men. Cadoc delivers them as demanded, but when Arthur takes possession of the animals, they turn into bundles of ferns. Similar incidents are described in the medieval biographies of Carannog, Padarn, and Eufflam, probably written around the 12th century. A less obviously legendary account appears in the Legenda Sancti Goeznovii, which is often claimed to date from the early 11th century although the earliest manuscript of this text dates from the 15th century.

Geoffrey of Monmouth

The first narrative account of Arthur's life is found in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin work Historia Regum Britanniae ("History of the Kings of Britain"). This work, completed c. 1138, is an imaginative and fanciful account of British kings from the legendary Trojan exile Brutus to the 7th-century Welsh prince Cadwallader. Geoffrey places Arthur in the same post-Roman period as do Historia Brittonum and Annales Cambriae. He incorporates Arthur's father, Uther Pendragon, his magician advisor Merlin, and the story of Arthur's conception, in which Uther, disguised as his enemy Gorlois by Merlin's magic, fathers Arthur on Gorlois's wife Igerna at Tintagel. On Uther's death, the fifteen-year-old Arthur succeeds him as King of Britain and fights a series of battles, similar to those in the Historia Brittonum, culminating in the Battle of Bath. He then defeats the Picts and Scots, before creating an Arthurian empire through his conquests of Ireland, Iceland, and the Orkney Islands. After twelve years of peace, Arthur sets out to expand his empire once more, taking control of Norway, Denmark and Gaul. Gaul is still held by the Roman Empire when it's conquered, and Arthur's victory naturally leads to a further confrontation between his empire and Rome's. Arthur and his warriors, including Kaius (Kay), Beduerus (Bedivere) and Gualguanus (Gawain), defeat the Roman emperor Lucius Tiberius in Gaul but, as he prepares to march on Rome, Arthur hears that his nephew Modredus – whom he'd left in charge of Britain – has married his wife Guenhuuara and seized the throne. Arthur returns to Britain and defeats and kills Modredus on the river Camblam in Cornwall, but he's mortally wounded. He hands the crown to his kinsman Constantine and is taken to the isle of Avalon to be healed of his wounds, never to be seen again.
How much of this narrative was Geoffrey's own invention is open to debate. Certainly, Geoffrey seems to have made use of the list of Arthur's twelve battles against the Saxons found in the 9th-century Historia Brittonum. Arthur's personal status as the king of all Britain would also seem to be borrowed from pre-Galfridian tradition, being found in Culhwch and Olwen, the Triads and the Saints' Lives. Finally, Geoffrey borrowed many of the names for Arthur's possessions and companions from the pre-Galfridian Welsh tradition, including Kaius (Cei), Beduerus (Bedwyr), Guenhuuara (Gwenhwyfar) and Uther (Uthyr). However, whilst names and titles may have been borrowed, Brynley Roberts has argued that "the Arthurian section is Geoffrey’s literary creation and it owes nothing to prior narrative." So, for instance, the Welsh Medraut is made the villainous Modredus by Geoffrey, but there's no trace of such a negative character for this figure in Welsh sources until the 16th century. There have been relatively few modern attempts to challenge this notion that the Historia Regum Britanniae is primarily Geoffrey's own work, with scholarly opinion often echoing William of Newburgh's late-12th-century comment that Geoffrey "made up" his narrative, perhaps through an "inordinate love of lying". Geoffrey Ashe is one dissenter from this view, believing that Geoffrey's narrative is partially derived from a lost source telling of the deeds of a 5th-century British king named Riotamus, this figure being the original Arthur, although historians and Celticists have been reluctant to follow Ashe in his conclusions. Whatever his sources may have been, the immense popularity of Geoffrey's Historia Regum Britanniae can't be denied. Well over 200 manuscript copies of Geoffrey’s Latin work are known to have survived, and this doesn't include translations into other languages. Thus, for example, around sixty manuscripts are extant containing Welsh-language versions of the Historia, the earliest of which were created in the 13th century; the old notion that some of these Welsh versions actually underlie Geoffrey's Historia, put forward by antiquarians such as the 18th-century Lewis Morris, has long since been discounted in academic circles and results from, in P. C. Bartrum's words, a "combination of misunderstanding and wishful thinking". As a result of this popularity, Geoffrey's Historia Regum Britanniae was enormously influential on the later medieval development of the Arthurian legend. Whilst it was by no means the only creative force behind Arthurian romance, many of its elements were borrowed and developed (for example the death of Arthur) and it provided the historical framework into which the romancers' tales of magical and wonderful adventures were inserted.

Romance traditions

The popularity of Geoffrey's Historia and its derivative works (such as Wace's Roman de Brut) is generally agreed to be an important factor in explaining the appearance of significant numbers of new Arthurian works in 12th and 13th century continental Europe, particularly in France. It was not, however, the only Arthurian influence on the developing "Matter of Britain". There is clear evidence for a knowledge of Arthur and Arthurian tales on the Continent before Geoffrey's work became widely known (see for example, the Modena Archivolt), as well as for the use of "Celtic" names and stories not found in Geoffrey's Historia in the Arthurian romances. From the perspective of Arthur, perhaps the most significant effect of this great outpouring of new Arthurian story was on the role of the king himself: much of this 12th century and later Arthurian literature centres less on Arthur himself than on characters such as Lancelot and Guenevere, Perceval, Galahad, Gawain, and Tristan and Isolde. Whereas Arthur is very much at the centre of the pre-Galfridian material and Geoffrey's Historia itself, in the romances he's rapidly sidelined. His character also alters significantly. In both the earliest materials and Geoffrey he's a great and ferocious warrior, who laughs as he personally slaughters witches and giants and takes a leading role in all military campaigns, whereas in the continental romances he becomes the roi fainéant, the "do-nothing king", whose "inactivity and acquiescence constituted a central flaw in his otherwise ideal society." Arthur's role in these works is frequently that of a wise, dignified, even-tempered, somewhat bland, and occasionally feeble monarch. So, he simply turns pale and silent when he learns of Lancelot's affair with Guinevere in the Mort Artu, whilst in Chrétien de Troyes's Yvain, the Knight of the Lion he's unable to stay awake after a feast and has to retire for a nap. Nonetheless, as Norris J. Lacy has observed, whatever his faults and frailties may be in these Arthurian romances, "his prestige is never – or almost never – compromised by his personal weaknesses... his authority and glory remain intact." Arthur and his retinue appear in some of the Lais of Marie de France, but it was the work of another French poet, Chrétien de Troyes, that had the greatest influence on the development of Arthur and his legend. Chrétien wrote five Arthurian romances between c. 1170 and c. 1190. Erec and Enide and Cligès are tales of courtly love with Arthur's court as their backdrop, and Yvain, the Knight of the Lion features Yvain and Gawain in a supernatural adventure. However, the most significant for the development of the Arthurian legend are Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, which introduces Lancelot and his adulterous relationship with Arthur's queen (Guinevere), and Perceval, the Story of the Grail, which introduces the Holy Grail and the Fisher King. Chrétien was thus "instrumental both in the elaboration of the Arthurian legend and in the establishment of the ideal form for the diffusion of that legend", and much of what came after built upon the foundations he'd laid. Perceval, although unfinished, was particularly popular: four separate continuations of the poem appeared over the next half century, with the notion of the Grail and its quest being developed by other writers such as Robert de Boron. Similarly, Lancelot and his affair with Guinevere became one of the classic motifs of the Arthurian legend, although the Lancelot of the prose Lancelot (c. 1225) and later texts was a combination of Chrétien's character and that of Ulrich von Zatzikhoven's Lanzelet. Chrétien's work even appears to feed back into Welsh Arthurian literature, where there are three Arthurian romances that are closely similar to those of Chrétien, albeit with some significant differences: Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain is related to Chrétien's Yvain; Geraint and Enid, to Erec and Enide; and Peredur son of Efrawg, to Perceval. However, it isn't entirely certain that these Welsh romances are derivative of Chrétien's works. A number of academics, including Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan, consider this to be the case, but others maintain that the relationship could move in the opposite direction or that there's a lost common source.
Up to c. 1210, continental Arthurian romance was expressed primarily through poetry; after this date the tales began to be told in prose. The most significant of these 13th-century prose romances was the Vulgate Cycle, (also known as the Lancelot-Grail Cycle), a series of five Middle French prose works written in the first half of that century. These works were the Estoire del Saint Grail, the Estoire de Merlin, the Lancelot propre (or Prose Lancelot, which made up half the entire Vulgate Cycle on its own), the Queste del Saint Graal and the Mort Artu. They combine to form the first coherent version of the entire Arthurian legend. The cycle introduced the character of Galahad, expanded the role of Merlin, and established the role of Camelot, first mentioned in passing in Chrétien's Lancelot, as Arthur's primary court. This series of texts was quickly followed by the Post-Vulgate Cycle (c. 1230–40), of which the Suite du Merlin is a part, which greatly reduced the importance of Lancelot's affair with Guinevere, focussing more on the Grail quest. Perhaps as a result of this, and the fact that Le Morte D'Arthur was one of the earliest printed books in England, published by William Caxton in 1485, most later Arthurian works are derivative of Malory's.

Decline, revival and the modern legend

Post-medieval literature

The end of the Middle Ages brought with it a waning of interest in King Arthur. Although Malory's English version of the great French romances was popular, there were increasing attacks upon the truthfulness of the historical framework of the Arthurian romances – established since Geoffrey of Monmouth's time – and thus the legitimacy of the whole Matter of Britain. So, for example, the 16th-century humanist scholar Polydore Vergil famously rejected the idea of a post-Roman Arthurian empire as a fabrication, to the horror of Welsh and English antiquarians. Social changes associated with the end of the medieval period and the Renaissance also conspired to rob the Arthurian legend of some of its power to enthral audiences, with the result that 1634 saw the last printing of Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur for nearly 200 years. King Arthur and the Arthurian legend were not entirely abandoned, but until the early 19th century, the material was taken less seriously and often used simply as vehicle for allegories of 17th and 18th century politics. Thus Richard Blackmore's epics Prince Arthur (1695) and King Arthur (1697) feature Arthur as an allegory for the struggles of William III against James II. Similarly, the most popular Arthurian tale throughout this period seems to have been that of Tom Thumb, which was set in Arthurian Britain and was told first through chapbooks and later through the political plays of Henry Fielding.

Tennyson and the revival

In the early 19th century, medievalism, Romanticism, and the Gothic Revival reawakened interest in the Arthurian legends and the medieval romances. A new code of ethics for 19th-century gentlemen was shaped around chivalric ideals. This renewed interest first made itself felt in 1816, when Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur was reprinted for the first time since 1634. Initially the medieval Arthurian legends were of particular interest to poets, inspiring, for example, William Wordsworth to write "The Egyptian Maid" (1835), an allegory of the Holy Grail. Pre-eminent among these was Alfred Lord Tennyson, whose first Arthurian poem, "The Lady of Shalott", was published in 1832. Tennyson's Arthurian work reached its peak of popularity with Idylls of the King, which reworked the entire narrative of Arthur's life. First published in 1859, it sold 10,000 copies within the first week. In the Idylls, Arthur became a symbol of ideal manhood whose attempt to establish a perfect kingdom on earth fails, finally, through human weakness. Tennyson's works prompted an explosion of imitators, generated considerable public interest in the legend of Arthur, and brought Malory’s tales to a wider audience. Following the publication of Tennyson's Idylls, there was a burst of Arthurian poetry and art in the second half of the 19th century. William Morris, Matthew Arnold and Algernon Charles Swinburne were all inspired to write Arthurian verse by Tennyson's Idylls. Pre-Raphaelite artists, such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones, were initially inspired by Tennyson but later broadened their interests to the larger medieval tradition. Changes swept popular culture, too. The humorous tale of Tom Thumb, which was the primary manifestation of the Arthurian legend in the 18th century, was rewritten after the publication of Idylls. While Tom maintained his small stature and remained a figure of comic relief, his story now included more elements from the medieval Arthurian romances. Finally, the first modernization of Malory's work was published in 1862, shortly after Idylls appeared; there were six further editions and five competitors before the century ended.
This interest in the "Arthur of romance" continued through the 19th century and into the 20th, and it stretched beyond England. For example, the German composer Richard Wagner was inspired to produce his operas Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal. The revived Arthurian romance also proved influential in the United States, with such books as Sidney Lanier's The Boy's King Arthur (1880) reaching wide audiences and providing inspiration for Mark Twain's satiric A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889). The Arthurian revival did not, however, continue unabated. By the end of the 19th century, it was confined mainly to Pre-Raphaelite imitators. Furthermore, the romance tradition couldn't avoid being affected by the First World War, which damaged the reputation of chivalry and thus interest in its medieval manifestations. The romance tradition did, however, remain sufficiently powerful to persuade Thomas Hardy, Laurence Binyon and John Masefield to compose Arthurian plays, and T. S. Eliot alludes to the Arthur myth in his poem The Waste Land, which mentions the Fisher King.

Modern legend

In the latter half of the 20th century, the influence of the romance tradition continued, through novels such as T. H. White's The Once and Future King (1958) and Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon (1982) in addition to comic strips such as Prince Valiant (1937–present). Tennyson had reworked the romance materials to suit the issues of the day, and the same is often the case with modern treatments. Bradley's tale, for example, takes a feminist approach to the legend and focuses on religious struggles between paganism and Christianity. The Arthurian legend has become popular in film as well. The musical Camelot, with its focus on the love of Lancelot and Guinevere, was made into a film in 1967. The romance tradition is particularly evident and, according to critics, successfully handled in Robert Bresson's Lancelot du Lac (1974), Eric Rohmer's Perceval le Gallois (1978), and perhaps John Boorman's fantasy film Excalibur (1981).
Re-tellings and re-imaginings of Arthurian romance are not the only important aspect of the modern Arthurian legend. Attempts to portray Arthur as a genuine historical figure of c. 500 AD, stripping away the "romance", have also emerged. As Taylor and Brewer have noted, this return to the medieval "chronicle tradition" of Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Historia Brittonum is a relatively recent trend which became dominant in Arthurian literature in the years following the outbreak of the Second World War, when Arthur's legendary resistance to Germanic invaders struck a chord in Britain. Clemence Dane's series of radio plays, The Saviours (1942), used a historical Arthur to embody the spirit of heroic resistance against desperate odds, and Robert Sherriff's play The Long Sunset (1955) saw Arthur rallying Romano-British resistance against the Germanic invaders. This trend towards placing Arthur in a historical setting is also apparent in historical and fantasy novels published during this period. In recent years the portrayal of Arthur as a real hero of the fifth century has also made its way into film versions of the Arthurian legend, most notably King Arthur (2004) and The Last Legion (2007).
Arthur has even been used as a model for modern-day behaviour. In the 1930s, the Order of the Fellowship of the Knights of the Round Table formed in Britain to promote Christian ideals and Arthurian notions of medieval chivalry. In the United States, hundreds of thousands of boys and girls joined Arthurian youth groups, such as the Knights of King Arthur, in which Arthur and his legends were promoted as wholesome exemplars. However, Arthur's diffusion within contemporary culture goes beyond such obviously Arthurian endeavours, with Arthurian names being regularly attached to objects, buildings and places. As Norris J. Lacy has observed, "The popular notion of Arthur appears to be limited, not surprisingly, to a few motifs and names, but there can be no doubt of the extent to which a legend born many centuries ago is profoundly embedded in modern culture at every level."

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