Joseph M. Sullivan

The Lady Lunete: Literary Conventions of Counsel and the Criticism of Counsel in Chrétien's Yvain and Hartmann's Iwein

This article proposes the creation by the Old French romancier Chrétien de Troyes of a distinctly romance type of counsel distinguished by an emphasis on private counsel between individual characters and the adoption and modification of that convention by authors of Arthurian romance in the Middle High German tradition. Specifically, it examines the German author Hartmann of Aues reception of Chrétiens convention of counsel by comparing Chrétiens own cica 1180 Yvain and Hartmanns reworking of the tale, his Iwein, from about 1195. A focal point for the comparative analysis of counsel in the two texts is the lady-in waiting, Lunete, who in both is prominent in her advice to her lady, Laudine, to marry Yvain/Iwein after he has killed Laudines husband. From a more cultural perspective, moreover, the article clarifies the extents to which the representations of Lunetes counsel by Chrétien and his Swabian counterpart, Hartmann, function as authorial commentaries on the place of counsel in noble society. While Chrétien greatly problematizes the positive nature of counsel, in Hartmanns reinterpretation of both Chrétiens convention of counsel and his Lunete figure, counsel, in both its private and public forms, becomes singularly positive.

Cinema Arthuriana without Malory?: The International Reception of Fuqua, Franzoni, and Bruckheimer's King Arthur (2004)

Filmmakers deviate greatly from traditional Arthurian narrative, challenging the distinct expectations that each national audience brings to this most un-Malorian picture.

Die Riddere metter Mouwen [The Knight with the Sleeve] and its Discourse on Personal Bonds

The discourse on love bonds, kinship bonds, feudal–vassalic bonds, bonds brought about through oaths, and religious bonds constitutes the thematic concentration that most greatly characterizes the uniqueness of the Die Riddere metter Mouwen among the romances of the Lancelotcompilatie. The romance imparts to its audience the message that most of these personal bonds may be violated when rejecting them upholds a higher moral good than maintaining them.