...Analysis of Chivalry in the Movie Excalibur) This past week in room 303 we have watched the movie Excalibur. This movie is about King Arthur and his life. This movie also involves chivalry and what it means to be a knight. Chivalry is the code of conduct and moral views of knights during the medieval ages. In the movie, there are a few good examples of chivalry. Chivalry is shown with Arthur’s brother, Lancelot, and the father and son in the woods during the movie Excalibur. The first example of chivalry that is shown in the movie is when Arthur’s brother gives up everything knowing what it could bring.. In the beginning of the movie, Arthur pulls the sword from the stone, not knowing how important it was. Not only that, but he had no idea of the responsibilities that would come from being worthy of the sword. He was led to pull out the sword because he had lost his brother’s sword, and was in search for another one. When he pulls out the sword, he hands it to his brother so he has a sword to fight with. His brother, knowing how important the sword is and what it could bring to him, tells everyone it was Arthur who pulled it out. This shows honor because he could have easily said it was him and been able to become king. This shows how noble his brother really is. It shows that he was not overcome...
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...Chivalry and its importance to knighthood Chivalry is one of the most important themes in the Arthurian culture. It is clearly present in both marte de Arthur and gwain and the green knight. Chivalry is the code of ethics and laws that the knights and king must hold themselves too. The most important virtues are courtly love, bravery and loyalty. Bravery is one of the highest acts a knight can do. Bravery is when a knight acts courageously and completes a dangerous act despite fear. Bravery is virtue held highly and because of it, it allows knight to climb in rank, the braver the knight the more respect he receives at the round table. Lancelot shows his bravery when he defeats Maleagant after saving the Queen, and is named the bravest of all knights....
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...to the start of the narrative; hence it provides key introductions to characters. Unquestionably one of the main themes of this narrative is chivalry. Chivalry was a concept well known in the fifteenth century and it was seen as the absolute ideal way to conduct oneself by the upper class. Central concepts within chivalry are honour, generosity, loyalty, courage and physical prowess. I believe that Molory is attempting to use Le Morte d’Arthur to exemplify how to act chivalrously. The genre of Romance was often utilised in this period to provide a template of action and I believe the characters of Arthur and Gareth do so in this text. The times Malory wrote Le Morte d’Arthur were extremely turbulent for the English people. There was barely two years of peace between The Hundred Years’ War and The War of the Roses so the English throne was at an incredibly unstable point and people were uncertain who was going to rule. I believe this historical context had an effect on Malory’s depiction of Arthur – he is represented as the ideal king possessing great chivalry, perhaps as a template for future kings or to show the people how a king should act. I see many examples of Arthur embodying the chivalrous ideal within this text, some of which I will explore now. Firstly Arthur addresses Gareth as ‘ye’; this second person pronoun shows more respect than the...
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...Knightliest of Knights I find these passages significant because Sir Gawain shows how and what it takes to be a chivalric knight of the Round Table under King Arthur. The first time we see the chivalric knighthood of Sir Gawain is when he accepts the challenge presented in front of everyone from the Green Knight. During a time of feasting and frolicking, the Green Knight enters King Arthur’s court and makes his presence known to everyone. He then offers a challenge to everyone in the court, including the King and all of his knights of the Round Table. When a hush falls over the court and nobody steps forward to acknowledge the challenge, King Arthur takes the axe offered from the Green Knight and heaves it over his head. Before he can strike the Green Knight, Sir Gawain emerges and stops the King. He tells King Arthur that he will take the challenge and the melee shall be his. This is the first example we see of the chivalry presented by Sir Gawain. A knight must be loyal to his lord and to God and a knight must never run from a challenge; Sir Gawain definitely shows loyalty to King Arthur when he takes the challenge from the King so the King does not lose his life in the end being as the person who accepts the challenge has to give the Green Knight a strike from the same axe. The second time Sir Gawain’s chivalry is presented is when he sticks to the challenge he accepted from the Green Knight and finds him in a year’s time to give the Green Knight his due. Most people...
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...The Big Three (Three Primary Elements of Chivalry) The first thing that often comes to a person’s head when they hear medieval times is knights. They think of all of the bright shiny armour with the big swords and all of those tags that go along with it. That is really all that they think of when they think of a knight though, they think battle and bright and shiny armour. What people generally don’t perceive is what it took the knight to become a knight. Along with that they don’t realize what really even makes the knight a knight other than the fact that he has to go to battle and fight. In the stories Sir Gawain and the Green Knight translated by Marie Borroff and Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory, they go a little deeper into what it actually means to be a knight. They begin to point out the things that actually classify one as a knight. There are three primary elements that classify a knight: courage, loyalty, and honor....
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...Medieval Literature Themes of Medieval Literature: • The Seven Deadly Sins • The Seven Heavenly Virtues • Physiognomy and "The Humours" • Values of "courtly love" • The Code of Chivalry(CF) The Poets and Authors: Caedmon: First English poet; author of "The Dream of the Holy Rood." Venerable Bede: wrote the Ecclesiastical History of England and the scientific treatise, De Natura Rerum. Geoffrey Chaucer: Famous Medieval author of the Canterbury Tales. Margery Kempe: Author of the first autobiography in English. John Gower: Medieval poet and friend of Geoffrey Chaucer Francesco Petrarch: Italian poet, and a humanist. Famous for his poems addressed to Laura. Dante: Medieval poet and politician. Christine de Pizan: Medieval author and feminist. William Longland: English poet who wrote the Vision of Piers Plowman. Boccaccio: Italian writer who was famous for writing the Decameron. Raphael Holinshed: Medieval author of Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland. (KM) Romance: • Chivalry was the reason behind this type of literature. • The greatest English example of the romance is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. • The romance hero-who often has the help of magic-undertakes a quest to conquer an evil enemy. (KM) Chivalry: • A system of ideals and social codes governing the behavior of knights and gentlewoman. • The rules included: taking an oath of loyalty to the overlord and observing certain rules of warfare...
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...Extreme Violence of the Knights In the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a group of knights, under King Arthur’s leadership, go on a quest, given to them by God, to find the Holy Grail. After a little debate, they split up, but eventually find each other again, where they approach the Bridge of Death, and after crossing, find the Grail. This movie is a significant, modern example of satire, which burlesques the knights and customs of the Middle Ages. Satire attempts to bring change in the world, without actually providing a solution. The film Monty Python and the Holy Grail uses exaggeration and unexpected logic to expose the amount of gratuitous violence that the knights employ in the Middle Ages. The scene with the brawl between...
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...King Arthur: A Film Review The myth of King Arthur is full of action, adventure, chivalry, treachery, romance, betrayal and tragedy. Donna Rosenberg writes, “The story of King Arthur has appealed to writers and readers for hundreds of years because it is so complex and varied.”(419) This is what led me to choose Antoine Fuqua’s 2004 cinematic version for my film review. I have always enjoyed mythology. Monsters, magic, tragic love, heroes and villains. All genres of mythology we have read over the last 7 weeks are interesting, but the tales coming from the British Isles, especially King Arthur, are more translatable to me and my daily life. Although King Arthur’s existence is not known for sure, the ideals he strove to bring about are important in today’s society. Arthur dreamed of a better world where every man, woman and child are equals and have free will. His legendary Round Table possibly symbolizes an early form of democracy. “It will bring peace among all of his knights, since the table has nether a head nor a foot. Whenever the knights meet, their thrones, their services, and their relationship to one another will be equal.” (Rosenberg 433). The myth of King Arthur as written in World Mythology: An Anthology of the Great Myths and Epics and the 2004 cinematic version has a few similarities and many dissimilarities. Both portray Arthur and his knights as courageous and strong. In Rosenberg’s World Mythology, Arthur is asked to fight a monster that has been ravaging the...
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...Furthermore, the restriction of violent women lies in the traditional ideal of the woman as being weak. The trend of women being defenseless and in need of protection has been present in international culture and society for the majority of the human experience. A good example of this lies in the underlying culture of chivalry. Chivalry can be described as a double edged sword: on one hand it causes men to be more respectful of women and therefore less objectifying, but it also reinforces the narrative of female frailty, defenselessness, and required/desirable purity (Keitner 69-72). The representation of the “damsel in distress” and the chivalrous knight in classic myths and narratives follows into the standard Jungian archetype of The White Knight and the Princess (de Alvarenga 32-34)....
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...Romantic stories of courtly love were spread throughout Medieval Europe by troubadours and minstrels. These wandering minstrels and troubadors sang ballads about courtly love and were expected to memorize the words of long poems describing valor and the code of chivalry followed by the Medieval knights. This new style of expressive writing transcended everything from ballads of battles and monsters like Beowulf to romantic adventures, such as the Arthurian legends. The romance of courtly love popularized during the Middle Ages was combined with the code of chivalry. There were strict rules of courtly love that were practiced and observed by the members of the courts across Europe during the Middle Ages. These rules allowed knights and ladies to show their admiration regardless of their marital state. It was a common occurrence for a married lady to give a token to a knight of her choice to be worn during a Medieval tournament. Despite the existence of these rules, the parties who started their relationship with such elements would sometimes become deeply involved. A famous example of a relationship which was stirred by courtly love is described in the Legend of King Arthur, where his Queen, Guinevere fell in love with Sir Lancelot. Many illicit court romances were fuelled by such practices. The Comtessa de Dia or Beatritz (born c. 1140) was perhaps the most famous of a small group of trobairitz, or female troubadours who wrote songs of courtly love during the twelfth and...
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...torn between Christianity and paganism, between virtue and sin, between light and utter darkness. An Era portraying a country trying to adapt to drastic changes brought on by the Norman Conquest of 1066, a country fighting to establish its own history in order to gain independence. A Period of knights and ladies, of valour and good faith, which gives life to some of the highest ideals mankind has ever known. It has introduced us to concepts such as chivalry and courtly love, pure expressions of spiritual essence. Of these ideals poets and authors wrote with lively passion, embroidering them in poems such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, or The Wife of Bath. Although its poet remains unknown, the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight remains instilled in our minds as one of the prime examples of chivalry, Gawain representing the chivalrous ideal of the period. His story begins at New Year, in a court filled with joy and happiness, during a banquet thrown by the legendary King Arthur. In the midst of the merriment, the King expresses his desire to behold a marvel, refusing to eat until he had done so. His desire is soon to be fulfilled, as a mysterious creature of the purest green strides in the castle atop his steed, which was also green. This creature exudes of beauty and power, inspiring...
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...“By portraying the perfect, Arthurian literature exposes the contemporary imperfect.” In the light of this statement, explore the ways in which Malory, Tennyson and Monty Python present chivalry. Chivalry is the preconceived moral code by which medieval knights would behave. As the 18th century critic Richard Hurd acknowledges, chivalric knights would demonstrate ‘their romantic ideas of justice; their passion for adventures; their eagerness to run succour of the distressed and the pride they took in redressing wrongs and removing grievances’. Throughout the works of Sir Thomas Malory, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Monty Python, this definition of chivalry remains constant, although with a particular focus on the tropes of physical prowess, superhuman endurance in combat and dutiful respect of ladies. However, as Leigh Hunt remarked of Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, the poem ‘treats the modes and feelings of one generation in the style of another’. I would argue that, in fact, this applies directly to all three writers. Malory presents the reader with an earthy, realistic, yet anachronistic representation to demonstrate the worth of such ideals in a country wrought with decline and chaos during the Wars of the Roses. Tennyson idealizes this knightly conduct: this glamorization of chivalry functions as a model which, for Tennyson, reflects the applauded propriety of Prince Albert and other Victorian gentry. Monty Python, in tune with the 1960/70s synonymous with the radical...
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...Literature is full of adventurous heroes from the classical to medieval periods. Heroes are symbolic to the beliefs, culture, and nation in which they live. The classical hero and medieval hero will be the focus of this essay. Three great heroes from the early classic to medieval periods are Beowulf, Achilles, and Sir Gawain. The paper will look at the similarities and differences of literary heroes in order to discover how heroes changed over time. Beowulf and Sir Gawain are romantic heroes full of bravery, loyalty, humility, courage, and virtue. Beowulf and Sir Gawain were both involved in battles of great magnitude and admired for their super human strength. Both of them battle with the intent to bring honor to the King: Sir Gawain to honor King Arthur and Beowulf to honor Hrothgar. The battles they fight are against good and evil, “Grendel is a shepherd of evil” and the Green Knight represents pre- Christian tribal paganism. The custom of the time period was to keep their word and honor the one who helped them rise to knighthood. Beowulf kept his word as seen in the poem as he returns from the adventures and presents all his gifts to Hygelac as a sign of loyalty (line 2145). Sir Gawain keeps his word with Lord Bertilak, by agreeing to exchange their winnings at the end of each day (Sir Gawain 1105-1113). Beowulf and Sir Gawain differ as heroes in several ways. First, Sir Gawain is an Arthurian Hero and as such holds to a Christian faith while Beowulf holds to the pagan...
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...transition in character while reading and comparing the books of Beowulf and King Arthur. Although the story archetypes remain the same for the most part, different ideals reflect themselves in a variety of ways. Things like companions and quest are still important to the people, but their ideals change. The ideals of the Germanic peoples of Northern Europe drastically change as Christianity moves across the region, and their archetypes reflect this change of character in the culture. In Beowulf, Beowulf and his companions express the heritage based Germanic Ideal of Comitatus or "loyalty to king and companions". Before fighting...
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...King Arthur From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For other uses, see King Arthur (disambiguation). Statue of King Arthur, Hofkirche, Innsbruck, designed by Albrecht Dürer and cast by Peter Vischer the Elder, 1520s[1] King Arthur is a legendary British leader who, according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against the Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and his historical existence is debated and disputed by modern historians.[2] The sparse historical background of Arthur is gleaned from various histories, including those of Gildas, Nennius and the Annales Cambriae. Arthur's name also occurs in early poetic sources such as Y Gododdin.[3] The legendary Arthur developed as a figure of international interest largely through the popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth's fanciful and imaginative 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain).[4] However, some Welsh and Breton tales and poems relating the story of Arthur date earlier than this work; these are usually termed "pre-Galfridian" texts (from the Latin form of Geoffrey, Galfridus). In these works, Arthur appears either as a great warrior defending Britain from human and supernatural enemies, or as a magical figure of folklore, sometimes associated with the Welsh Otherworld, Annwn.[5] How much of Geoffrey's Historia (completed in 1138) was adapted from such earlier sources...
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