EN2420
University of Warwick
Summer Examinations 2015
Arthurian Literature and its Legacy
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Time allowed:
2 hours
Read carefully the instructions on the answer book and make sure that the particulars
required are entered fully on each answer book used.
Do not substantially repeat material from assessed essays or any other form of assessed
coursework or between questions on the exam.
Please answer 2 questions: EITHER one from Section A and one from Section B,
OR two from section B.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Section A
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------
1. What genres in addition to history-writing contribute to the Arthurian section of
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, and what is the effect of their
inclusion?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2. Examine the significance of anonymity and naming in Chretien de Troyes’ Arthurian
romances.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3. Examine the differences in the presentation and evaluation of courtly love between
Chretien’s Knight with the Cart and Knight with the Lion.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4. Compare the representation of female power in Marie de France’s Lanval with either
or both of Chretien’s Arthurian romances we have studied.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5. To what extent are truth and falsehood stable categories in Gottfried von
Strassburg’s Tristan?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6. Explore the treatment of low social class in Thomas Chestre’s Sir Launfal and in the
Middle English Gawain romances.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Continued
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7. In what ways do the Grail narratives of Robert de Boron and/or the anonymous
Quest of the Holy Grail revise pre-existent ideas of Arthurian chivalry?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8. What do the Grail narratives of Robert de Boron and/or the anonymous Quest of the
Holy Grail tell us about the character of the eucharist?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Section B
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1. In what new directions does Malory take the French character of Sir Lancelot?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2. Consider the role of predeterminism in Malory’s Morte d’Arthur.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3. Explore ideas of progress and regress in Tennyson’s Idylls of the King.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4. How does Tennyson’s depiction and evaluation of the Grail quest differ from
medieval portrayals?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood ‘supplements Malory in taking a particular point
within the narrative and exploring it in psychological terms.’ (C. Brewer, adapted)
Discuss, in relation to any two or three PRB poems and/or paintings.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6. In what ways, and with what degree of success, does Mark Twain utilise Arthurian
myth to comment upon late 19th-century America in A Connecticut Yankee?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7. How does John Masefield’s engagement with classicism and with Roman Britain
affect his recounting of the Arthurian story in his Midsummer Night collection
(1928)?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8. Compare the representation of religion within the Arthurian universe between any
two of the following: John Masefield’s Midsummer Night collection (1928); Charles
Williams’ Taliesin through Logres (1938); Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave (1970).
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9. Explore the contrasting representations of Merlin within the Arthurian works of any
two or three of the following writers: Tennyson, Mark Twain, T.H. White, Mary
Stewart.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------10. T.H. White’s The Sword in the Stone finally dispels the medieval dichotomy between
the court and the forest. Discuss.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------11. In what ways does Mary Stewart accommodate Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia to
late 20th-century concerns in The Crystal Cave?
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End