The Arthurian world

This collection provides an innovative and wide-ranging introduction to the world of Arthur by looking beyond the canonical texts and themes, taking instead a transversal perspective on the Arthurian narrative. Together, its thirty-four chapters explore the continuities that make the material recognizable from one century to another, as well as transformations specific to particular times and places, revealing the astonishing variety of adaptations that have made the Arthurian story popular in large parts of the world.

Divided into four parts―The World of Arthur in the British Isles, The European World of Arthur, The Material World of Arthur, and The Transversal World of Arthur ― the volume tracks the legend’s movement across temporal, geographical, and material boundaries. Broadly chronological, each part views the unfolding Arthurian story through its own lens, while temporal and geographical overlaps between the sections underscore the proximity of these developments in the legend’s history.

Ranging from early Latin chronicles and Welsh poetry to twenty-first century anime and political conspiracies, this comprehensive and illuminating book will be of interest to anyone researching Arthurian literature or tracing the evolution of medievalism through literature, the visual arts, and popular culture.

Victoria Coldham-Fussell is a Research Ethics Adviser for Victoria University of Wellington―Te Herenga Waka. Her research focuses on renaissance humor and the work of Edmund Spenser. She is the author of Comic Spenser: Faith, Folly, and The Faerie Queene (2020), co-author of the Oxford Bibliographies article 'Edmund Spenser' (2017), and contributor to Conversātiō―In the Company of Bees (2021).

Miriam Edlich-Muth holds the Chair of Medieval English and Historical Linguistics at the University of Düsseldorf, Germany.

Renée Ward is Senior Lecturer in Medieval Literature at the University of Lincoln, UK, and co-editor of The Year’s Work in Medievalism.