King Arthur’s Modern Return

The Arthurian legend closes with a promise: On a distant day, when his country calls, the king will return. His lost realm will be regained, and his shattered dream of an ideal world will, at last, be realized. This collection of original essays explores the issue of return in the modern Arthurian legend. With an Introduction by noted scholar Raymond H. Thompson and 13 essays by authors from the fields of literature, art history, film history, and folklore, this collection reveals the flexibility of the legend. Just as the modern legend takes the form current to its generation, the myth of return generates a new legend with each telling. As these authors show, return can come in the form of a noble king or a Caribbean immigrant, with the mystery of an art theft or a dying boy's dream.

Introduction: Does One Good Return Deserve Another?, Raymond H. Thompson * Three Ways of Coming Back: Folkloric Perspectives on Arthur's Return, Carl Lindahl * Much Better Burnt: Reading Arthur's Return by the Light of Troy, William R. McKelvy, III * Come Again, and Thrice as Fair: Reading Tennyson's Beginning, Linda K. Hughes * Re-Vamping Vivien: Reinventing Myth as Victorian Icon, Beverly Taylor * Return of St. George 1850-1915, Joseph A. Kestner * Class, Race, and Arthurian Narrative in San Francisco in the 1870s, Kymberly N. Pinder * Figure of King Arthur in America, Alan Lupack * Chivalric Order for Children: Arthur's Return in Late 19th- and Early 20th-century America, Jeanne Fox-Friedman * King Arthur Goes to War, Norris J. Lacy * Caribbean Galahad and the Secular Sarras, Donald L. Hoffman * Return to Camelot on Page and Screen: Chris Millard's Four Diamonds, Kevin J. Harty * The Aging of the King: Arthur and America in First Knight, Jacqueline Jenkins * Finding the Grail: Fascist Aesthetics and Mysterious Objects, Mary Baine Campbell