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Distinctly interdisciplinary, Kingship, Conquest, and Patria brings
together French and Welsh studies with literary and historical
analysis, genre study with questions of medieval colonialisms and
national writing. It treats eight centuries' worth of insular and
continental literature, placing the 12th- and 13th-century
development of Arthurian romance in a history of fraught, ambiguous
relations between Capetian France, Angevin England, and native
Wales. Overall, the book aims to contextualize how French Arthurian
romance and Welsh rhamant, despite being products of opposing
cultures in an age of conquest, collectively revise the figure of
King Arthur created by earlier insular tradition. At a time when
contemporary monarchies sought to curtail the autonomy of both
northern French and Welsh principalities, the literary image of
kingship pointedly declines in romance and rhamant, replaced by an
ideal of knightly independence. A focus on the romance portrait of
King Arthur is the culmination of this study: Part I provides a
survey of early British Arthurian material written in Latin and
Welsh; Part II presents the historical contexts in northern France
and Wales out of which the genre of Arthurian romance emerged; Part
III turns to literary and sociopolitical analyses of Chretien's
five romances and the three Welsh rhamantau.
Distinctly interdisciplinary, "Kingship, Conquest, and Patria"
brings together French and Welsh studies with literary and
historical analysis, genre study with questions of medieval
colonialisms and national writing. It treats eight centuries' worth
of insular and continental literature, placing the 12th- and
13th-century development of Arthurian romance in a history of
fraught, ambiguous relations between Capetian France, Angevin
England, and native Wales. Overall, the book aims to contextualize
how French Arthurian romance and Welsh rhamant, despite being
products of opposing cultures in an age of conquest, collectively
revise the figure of King Arthur created by earlier insular
tradition. At a time when contemporary monarchies sought to curtail
the autonomy of both northern French and Welsh principalities, the
literary image of kingship pointedly declines in romance and
rhamant, replaced by an ideal of knightly independence. A focus on
the romance portrait of King Arthur is the culmination of this
study: Part I provides a survey of early British Arthurian material
written in Latin and Welsh; Part II presents the historical
contexts in northern France and Wales out of which the genre of
Arthurian romance emerged; Part III turns to literary and
sociopolitical analyses of Chre tien's five romances and the three
Welsh "rhamantau."
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