Date of Submission
Spring 2021
Academic Program
French Studies; Medieval Studies
Project Advisor 1
Karen Sullivan
Project Advisor 2
Eric Trudel
Abstract/Artist's Statement
The legend of King Arthur and his knights of the round table is one of the best-known stories in the Western world. Generally people tend to associate Arthurian legend with fifteenth-century English writing or French romances, but in reality, Arthurian legend has its origins in Brittonic oral tradition. Merlin, specifically, represents the concepts of Brittonic paganism and wildness more than any other Arthurian character. The changes made in the character and the narrative of Merlin, from Brittonic legend to Latin writing and then to French romances, reflect a political and cultural shift in Britain and France. An examination of Merlin in the various stages of his transformations will suggest a subversion of the treatment of the Britons, and later the Welsh, as barbaric. This examination will also reveal how the evolution of Merlin’s specific interactions with kings, particularly his relationship with Arthur, contributed to the emergence of the high medieval romance literary genre.
Open Access Agreement
Open Access
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Lawrie, Viveca Calista, "Wild Wales: How Cultural Discrimination Transformed Merlin from Brittonic Legends to French Arthurian Romances" (2021). Senior Projects Spring 2021. 182.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2021/182
This work is protected by a Creative Commons license. Any use not permitted under that license is prohibited.
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