Arthurian Research in a New Century: Prospects and Projects

Summary

This is by no means the first, nor will it be the last, appraisal of the state of Arthurian scholarship. There have been a good many, only a few of which I will mention here. One, to which I will return, is Derek Brewer’s Some Current Trends in Arthurian Scholarship and Criticism 1987 (published in 1991); he offers an elegant if comparatively general set of observations about trends, particularly the differences in scholarly trends from nationality to nationality.

Other e’tats pre’sents include an extended article on Arthurian Art Since Loomis by Alison Stones (in 1991), and Keith Busby has twice assessed medieval French Arthurian scholarship. In 1996, Garland published Medieval Arthurian Literature: A Guide to Recent Research, which I edited, and which deals not only with the expected Celtic, French, German, and English, but also with the so-called second-tier Arthurian literatures - Dutch, Scandinavian, Italian, and Hispanic.

Significantly, apart from a few provocative observations offered by Brewer, all of the e’tats pre’sents I have mentioned (and some others) deal exclusively with medieval literature or art. That may prove irksome to certain scholars, who have devoted themselves tirelessly to a study of modern Arthurian literature, film, and other media. Conversely, others might argue that limiting such studies to the medieval period is entirely justified (and, indeed, some might suggest that, at least in terms of Arthurian literature, post-medieval is virtually the equivalent of decadent). In conversation, a distinguished Arthurian scholar argued to me that such material had no place in the International Arthurian Society - in its congresses or in its Bibliographical Bulletin. And indeed, with rare exceptions, it is only in the past fifteen years or so that modern subjects have been welcomed (or at least regularly accepted) for the Society’s triennial international congresses. I will have occasion to return to questions about modern Arthuriana later in this essay.

It is no simple matter to assess recent scholarship; the more difficult under- taking - prognostication - ought to make us hesitant if not humble. Reading some appraisals of Arthurian literature and scholarship from several genera- tions back should make us wonder what scholars, generations from now, may make of our judgments and our studies. Consider, for example, what W. W. Comfort had to say about Chre’tien de Troyes in the 1914 introduction to his important if unfortunate translation of the romances: