Okay, so I thought this book was a fun read that took the characters of Arthurian legend out of their normal setting, but I thought that the different connections to the characters was somewhat interesting. Starting with the main man Will, it took a while until it was revealed that his first name was Arthur. I thought that this was a peculiar choice since we always see Lancelot's name being held from the audience, not Arthur's. Lance on the other hand was the easiest to identify. He was a character that did not really have the charismatic energy we are used to seeing Lancelot have. Lance was just a watered down Lancelot that was only present in helping Will on the football field and canoodling with Jennifer. Another character that stood out was Mr. Morton. By the end of the book the characters pieced together that "Morton and Merlin" were connected (287). I thought this comparison was kind of a stretch. Yes, Mr. Morton was in that position to help and guide Will, but that did not really occur until the end of the book. I thought that this was strange, considering how much of an impact Merlin had on Arthur's life. Overall, I think that these characters molded to the story quite nicely and made the reading enjoyable.
Thursday, April 23, 2020
Character Connections
Okay, so I thought this book was a fun read that took the characters of Arthurian legend out of their normal setting, but I thought that the different connections to the characters was somewhat interesting. Starting with the main man Will, it took a while until it was revealed that his first name was Arthur. I thought that this was a peculiar choice since we always see Lancelot's name being held from the audience, not Arthur's. Lance on the other hand was the easiest to identify. He was a character that did not really have the charismatic energy we are used to seeing Lancelot have. Lance was just a watered down Lancelot that was only present in helping Will on the football field and canoodling with Jennifer. Another character that stood out was Mr. Morton. By the end of the book the characters pieced together that "Morton and Merlin" were connected (287). I thought this comparison was kind of a stretch. Yes, Mr. Morton was in that position to help and guide Will, but that did not really occur until the end of the book. I thought that this was strange, considering how much of an impact Merlin had on Arthur's life. Overall, I think that these characters molded to the story quite nicely and made the reading enjoyable.
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I felt like it was easy to identify Will as Arthur because of the "A. William Wager" bit. Clearly, Cabot was trying to disguise the name Arthur, but going into the story knowing it's an Arthur story, that felt too obvious. I agree that Lance's character is a watered down version of the Lancelot we're used to seeing. He's more like the "dumb jock" stereotype rather than how we would expect an equivalent of "the greatest knight" to be. I also felt like Morton's character was an obvious parallel through his description. I was disappointed that he gave up trying to help/protect Will so easily.
ReplyDeleteFirst: points for "canoodling."
ReplyDeleteNext: I think you point to something really interesting which is the overall shift from a focus on Arthur's knights in the high middle ages to a focus on Arthur himself in more modern texts. There are lots of factors to which we could attribute this and I'm curious what y'all think. Why are we more interested today in having Arthur as a central figure, rather than his knights? Why were we disappointed when we meet Arthur and he...doesn't really do much, in texts like SGGK?
I did not even notice how more modern texts focus on Arthur but you are right! I think if anything that is what was really missing from the high middle ages. I think that we were disappointed because we hear about the great King Arthur but then in older texts he is just sort of there? He really never added much to the stories.
DeleteI think it has to do with the modern desire for character development. The lack of character development was a big issue for almost everyone when we were reading the original texts, so seeing this shift in focus from Arthur's knights and battles to Arthur himself just proves that our literary desires have changed since the original texts.
DeleteModern text does focus on Arthur more and I think maybe because of his popularity in the medieval times. Everyone was focused on him then and I think since everyone has heard of him through time. So if he is the center of attention in modern text then that text will have more readers since they will know of him.
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