The Project of Arthurian Studies: Quondam et Futurus

Summary

Even the Los Alamos physicists brave enough to establish The Prediction Company admit that futurology is still notoriously unreliable as a guide to science. Scholars peering into the future state of play in fields of humanist study carefully resist predictive certitude, not only because we relish the unpredictable but also because we value the idiosyncratic over the replicable result. But since I have been asked to imagine what is next for Arthurian studies, I will temporarily cast my lot with Merlin. First I will briefly look backward as I glance at the quondam of our field as an emerging discipline and then, a bit less cursorily, look forward to some possible directions of study. In this volume Norris Lacy has already mapped the present status of our studies along with his assessment of our prospects; in general, my conclusions are less autumnal than his. In my view, Arthurian Studies have never been healthier or more vibrant than they are at present.

I. QUONDAM

By the time that they formed the Arthurian Society in late 1927, Arthurian scholars at Oxford had determined that this subject was more than a mere sub- niche of literary studies. A few years earlier, on the other side of the pond, that same academic generation (propelled by concerns that studies of medieval Latin literature not be slighted by attention to vernacular languages) founded the Medieval Academy of America. Each of these enterprises had at least two aims: first, to foster research and teaching of medieval subjects, and second, to further public discussion of the results of such research. John Nicholas Brown - philanthropist and long-time treasurer of the Medieval Academy - once told me that the founders of the Medieval Academy hoped that knowledge of the medieval past might aid crucial efforts to sustain international cooperation and peace in the period following World War I. One suspects a parallel internation- alist concern among Arthurians.

The Oxford-centered Arthurian Society - slightly more than half of whose members, it is interesting to note, were women - sponsored a scholarly journal and named it Arthuriana. The society’s organizer and honorary president was Euge’ne Vinaver. Soon, perhaps in imitation of the Harvard-centered Medieval Academy, the Arthurian Society amplified its focus and membership. By 1931, it changed its name to the Society for the Study of Mediaeval Languages and Literature, and its journal was transformed into Medium JEvum.