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Studies in the Role of Cities in Arthurian Literature and in the Value of Arthurian Literature for a Civic Identity: When Arthuriana Meet Civic Spheres
Studies in the Role of Cities in Arthurian Literature and in the Value of Arthurian Literature for a Civic Identity When Arthuriana Meet Civic Spheres Author:Dietl, Cora, & Lauer, Claudia The city as both a fictive room of action or a fictionalized social group within aristocratic narrative and a 'real' room of production and reception of originally aristocratic fictional literature is a phenomenon which has so far been neglected by scholarly research on Arthurian literature. The present book, focuses upon cities in medieval hist... more »ory, culture and literature by Arthurian scholars from different continents and disciplines. Arthurian fiction is well known to be a typically aristocratic genre of literature. It represents courtly values, describes courtly rites, discusses courtly problems and is mainly centered in courtly settings, while the 'other' world beyond the court serves as a space of adventure and fight. All Arthurian heroes are nobles, most of them somehow linked to royal families. Nevertheless, there are, in fact, cities and townspeople described in Arthurian literature and, furthermore, Arthurian texts were read, copied and re-enacted by the upper class inhabitants of many European cities, especially in the Later Middle Ages.« less