Posts Tagged ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’

Twain makes no explanation as to how his 19 th -century man, one Hank Morgan, travels back in time and place from Hartford,, Connecticut, to 6 th -century England; he just wakes up one morning and there he is. He is also dealt with as any 6 th -century stranger would be: He can see a lot of scope for his brain and superior knowledge, and the nice thing is, none of it is for his own aggrandisement. The first things to make their absence known are the basic necessities of life; no soap, no matches, no mirrors. There were no books, paper, pens or ink, and no glass for windows.

There was no sugar, coffee, tea or tobacco: It helps that the entire nation thinks that he is a magician, and that Merlin who in this novel is a doddering and malign old man with no power whatsoever is not going to get in his way. The rest of the novel is part adventure, part philosophical nature ramble, on how an ignorant and illiterate populace can be persuaded to help turn themselves into a republic.

Spot the American influence. Not that Twain has anything against King Arthur. Arthur remains a noble and honourable figure throughout I think it would be hard to change his character in any circumstances , but he is a bit dim. Twain does an excellent job of thinking through how 6 th -century man might think, speak, and reason, and he sticks to it. His chief assistant, Clarence, learns fast how to keep up with the Boss and his schemes and planning, but he still speaks in the way he was brought up: The Boss, in his turn, has to act like a 6 th -century knight, especially when a fair maiden arrives at court with a tale of woe and captured ladies.

He is provided with a horse and weapons and armour complicated to put on and manage , and off he goes on a quest, with the lady sitting behind him chattering unstoppably. Problems begin when the sun gets stronger and the shade gets weaker, and he gets hotter, and has an itch on the back, and a fly inside his helmet.

They run into Morgan Le Fay, a terrifying witch, married to King Uriens, who is a doddering old man with no courage very much like the Red Queen and Red King from Alice in Wonderland , which had been published a few years earlier. This is what I admire about this novel. It is not fantasy wish-fulfilment, in which all ills are easily wiped away by a stroke.

People get killed and die of other means: The Boss blows people up, kills people, arranges for things to happen that will inadvertently kill people: This is what people are like. He deals with the knightly class once and for all by first defeating his most hated enemy in a joust with a lasso, and then with a revolver.


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Many knights die, and no-one thinks anything of this, because we are reminded jousting was not about the spectacle and the romance, it was about maiming and disabling your opponent with heavy, fast and sharp weapons and then cutting his head off. He really is not like us at all. What does this novel have to say about Arthur, and the Round Table? I love Lancelot , but this movie I reserve for Arthur and Guinevere! Their romance is so often overlooked because of the burning passion between Guinevere and Lancelot, but the simple romance deserves its own attention, too.

My whole family got sick of listening to me play the record over and over until it was scratched and I still listen to the music almost every day. There are lots of people like us who are enthusiasts of the legend, but not everyone wants to be a scholar of it. What about studying the legend appeals to you so much? Arthurian legend is so adaptable. Not only does it survive and thrive in modern times—Monty Python which plays with it but in a very different way than Mark Twain!

It was really fascinating to see the ways that each culture and society influenced the way the same tales were written. That just looked at the differences, though. I want to use that kind of analysis to look at what is the same among the adaptations of the legend in all these languages, cultures, and time periods. Well, we could talk about this topic all day, but tell us about the program at Exeter this summer. What do you hope to learn as a result of attending it?


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The program is arranged to cover one topic per day, in two two-hour sessions per day. Some of the topics are of course the historical background, the theme of chivalry, the life of the court, and magic in Arthurian legend.

Author Tyler Tichelaar's Arthurian blog

Again, that points to the way Arthurian legend permeates so much of everything else. After this course, I should be able to do that, which will of course enrich the way I create these lists in the first place. I understand you also hope to visit some Arthurian sites in England and France. What do you hope to see? Of course, that had no effect on the reality of the times. Tell us about your fundraising campaign. How much do you need to raise, how soon, where do we go to contribute, and what rewards are you offering? The link for the campaign is https: Thank you for joining me, Esther.

I hope you have a wonderful trip, get all the funding you need, and if you bump into Merlin or figure out how to get to Avalon, please come back and tell us all about it. The program is well worth watching, in some ways being more, and in a few ways less, than I expected, but overall, for s television, it stands up well. The Adventures of Sir Lancelot aired on the ITV network from for thirty episodes and nearly half of the later episodes were actually in color—the first British television show to be in color, which speaks well for its popularity.

It was also one of the few British television shows ever to be shown in the U. The series starred William Russell as Sir Lancelot and includes other apparently well-known British actors of the time, although I had never heard of any of them.

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Apparently, the producers wanted to be historically accurate in recreating the Arthurian legend, so they recreated a fourteenth century Britain, an entire pre-Norman Conquest Village, and filmed at Allington Castle in rural Kent to provide grand visuals. Actually, the program is not all that historically accurate. The costumes and castles are of a much later medieval period as is usually to be expected. The sword fights are poor and very fake looking, especially in the first few episodes, and the battle scenes, which are few, usually have only half-a-dozen people laying siege to a castle.

There are no grand and epic battle scenes with a gigantic cast.

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But if one can overlook these minor flaws of the production and its time period and expect a series of fun TV sitcom s style episodes, a person can find much to enjoy in the show. He is not the lover of Guinevere, although they definitely check each other out when he arrives at Camelot in the first season.

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The producers who wanted to be historical must have also wished to be realistic. Magic does not exist in this Camelot. One reviewer at Amazon asked whether the writers and producers did any research into the legend. The answer is a definite yes. Other plot elements in different episodes also make it clear the familiar stories of Camelot were modified to fit the program. It may not have high aspirations for recreating an accurate or fantastic Arthurian world, but The Adventures of Sir Lancelot succeeds at what it sets out to do, and it provides some light entertainment.

I give it four out of five stars.

A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court

A Study in Fiction and Tradition , available at www. This one turned out to be near the top of my list of disappointments. Nowhere on the front or back cover was it indicated in which order to read the books.


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I also discovered at Amazon that Kinley MacGregor is a pseudonym for Sherrilyn Kenyon, whose name I had heard in reference to her vampire novels, although I had not read them. Those vampire novels might be worth reading, but when I did a little more research and found this author has written over 60 novels and is only in her mids, I understood why Knight of Darkness is so bad. No author can whip out that many books in 20 years and expect to create quality. That she is a bestselling author is just a sign of how good marketing can sell anything. Varian, however, works for the good guys—including Merlin, but a female Merlin—and as a hired assassin for them.

The book is set in modern times as well. I was slightly intrigued by the situation.