Arthur the Warrior from Medieval to Modern

This chapter studies the significance of King Arthur’s status as a military fighter and as a leader of warriors in both medieval and modern literary contexts. First exploring the militarist and imperialist version of King Arthur that was appropriated and expanded by Geoffrey of Monmouth, the essay shows how aggressive Arthurian militarism was consistently haunted by anti-imperialist critique, particularly within late medieval romances of the Old French tradition (such as Chrétien de Troyes’s Perceval) and late medieval English work (particularly, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight). After analysing the ambivalence of Arthurian militarism within Malory, the essay shows the modern deployment of Arthurian militarism by figures such as Spenser and Tennyson. The essay closes with comparison of ghostly, late medieval warnings about the ill fruits of militarism in the Awntyrs off Arthure with Kazuo Ishiguro’s contemporary portrait of the endemic nature of violence in the Britain shaped by Arthurian militarist culture.