Description | The medieval period has always occupied a paradoxical position in our cultural memory. An age of fantasy unimaginably distant from historical reality, it is also an era onto which writers and artists—and now moviemakers and gamers—have long projected their fears and desires. Why do cultures remake certain figures from the past—but not others--in their own image?
Join Professor Emerita of History Robin Stacey for this five-lecture series where she looks at the present’s relationship with the past through the lens of the making and remaking of important historical figures—some real, some fictional, and some the creatures of myth.
Lecture Two: Arthur, rex quondam, rexque futurus From Roman soldier to chivalric king to improbably egalitarian Sarmatian freedom fighter, Arthur has done it all. But did he really exist? How did the understanding of his nature and importance change over the centuries? And what about Guinevere? She is part of every modern Arthur retelling, but where did her story begin? |
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