Assembling Arthur (A Roundtable)

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Special Session

Organizer Name

Leah Haught, Leila K. Norako

Organizer Affiliation

Univ. of West Georgia, Univ. of Washington-Seattle

Presider Name

Leah Haught, Leila K. Norako

Paper Title 1

The Effect of Caxton's Modifications to the Morte Darthur on Listening Audiences

Presenter 1 Name

David Eugene Clark

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Suffolk County Community College

Paper Title 2

Beginning and Ending with Arthur: Compilation Practices of Arthurian Romance in Fifteenth-Century Manuscripts

Presenter 2 Name

Rebecca Pope

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Univ. of Kent

Paper Title 3

Gawain's Mythic Penis: Castration Anxiety and the Problems of Mastery in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Presenter 3 Name

James C. Staples

Presenter 3 Affiliation

New York Univ.

Paper Title 4

Assembling Malory's Arthur: How Was/Is the "Text" of the Morte Darthur Assembled?

Presenter 4 Name

D. Thomas Hanks, Jr.

Presenter 4 Affiliation

Baylor Univ.

Paper Title 5

Response: "Constellations" and Arthurian Assemblages

Presenter 5 Name

Sarah M. Anderson

Presenter 5 Affiliation

Princeton Univ.

Paper Title 6

Discussant

Presenter 6 Name

Arthur Bahr

Presenter 6 Affiliation

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Start Date

14-5-2017 8:30 AM

Session Location

Bernhard Brown & Gold Room

Description

When we teach classes on the Arthurian tradition, many of us rely on anthologies such as James Wilhelm’s The Romance of Arthur or collections such as the William Kibler and Carleton Carroll edition of Chrétien de Troyes’ “complete” Arthurian Romances for the Penguin Classics Series. While indispensable to such courses, these assemblages present Arthurian texts in ways vastly different from how they appear in medieval manuscripts. Many medieval Arthurian texts, for instance, survive in a single manuscript alongside non-Arthurian writings and images from a wide array of diverse traditions and styles. Indeed, even when a single text is extant in more than one manuscript or a single manuscript includes more than one Arthurian text, the different materials surrounding these contributions to the larger legend highlight the numerous interpretive potentialities associated with Arthuriana instead of advancing a fixed meaning for a given contribution. Drawing on Arthur Bahr’s suggestion that literary value can be continuously (re)discovered among the interchanges between “codicological form and textual content,” this Round Table seeks to explore Arthurian manuscripts, broadly defined, as compilations. What insights are gained about individual texts and/or the larger legend as a whole when we accept Bahr’s invitation to read “compilationally”? How might such exchanges between codicology and formalism open up new avenues for future study of Arthuriana? And how might accounting for the complex realities of the Arthurian manuscript tradition in the classroom invite our students to participate in these alternate modes of critical engagement?

Leah Haught and Leila Norako

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May 14th, 8:30 AM

Assembling Arthur (A Roundtable)

Bernhard Brown & Gold Room

When we teach classes on the Arthurian tradition, many of us rely on anthologies such as James Wilhelm’s The Romance of Arthur or collections such as the William Kibler and Carleton Carroll edition of Chrétien de Troyes’ “complete” Arthurian Romances for the Penguin Classics Series. While indispensable to such courses, these assemblages present Arthurian texts in ways vastly different from how they appear in medieval manuscripts. Many medieval Arthurian texts, for instance, survive in a single manuscript alongside non-Arthurian writings and images from a wide array of diverse traditions and styles. Indeed, even when a single text is extant in more than one manuscript or a single manuscript includes more than one Arthurian text, the different materials surrounding these contributions to the larger legend highlight the numerous interpretive potentialities associated with Arthuriana instead of advancing a fixed meaning for a given contribution. Drawing on Arthur Bahr’s suggestion that literary value can be continuously (re)discovered among the interchanges between “codicological form and textual content,” this Round Table seeks to explore Arthurian manuscripts, broadly defined, as compilations. What insights are gained about individual texts and/or the larger legend as a whole when we accept Bahr’s invitation to read “compilationally”? How might such exchanges between codicology and formalism open up new avenues for future study of Arthuriana? And how might accounting for the complex realities of the Arthurian manuscript tradition in the classroom invite our students to participate in these alternate modes of critical engagement?

Leah Haught and Leila Norako