The Arthur of the Iberians: The Arthurian Legends in the Spanish and Portuguese Worlds(Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages)

Though we think of King Arthur as archetypically British, the spread of the Arthurian legends was international, extending, among other places, to the Iberian Peninsula, where they had a deep influence and inspired such literary works as the chivalric romances parodied by Cervantes in Don Quixote. Iberia was also the conduit through which these legends travelled to the Americas. The Arthur of the Iberians explores not only medieval and Renaissance texts, but also modern Arthurian fiction, the global spread of the legends in the Spanish and Portuguese worlds, and the social impacts of Arthur and the Round Table through adoption of names and imitation of the practices narrated in the legends.

Table of Contents:
Introduction I Arthurian Material in Iberia Paloma Gracia II The Surviving Peninsular Arthurian Witnesses: A Description and an Analysis José Manuel Lucía Megías III Arthurian Literature in Portugal Santiago Gutiérrez García IV The Matière de Bretagne in Galicia from the XIIth to the XVth Century Pilar Lorenzo Gradín V The Matière de Bretagne in the Corona de Aragón Lourdes Soriano Robles VI The Matter of Britain and Historical Reality Carlos Alvar VII The Post-Vulgate Cycle in the Iberian Peninsula Paloma Gracia VIII The Hispanic Versions of the Lancelot en prose: Lanzarote del Lago and Lançalot Antonio Contreras IX The Iberian Tristan Texts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance María Luzdivina Cuesta Torre X Amadís de Gaula Rafael Ramos XI Arthur Goes Global: Arthurian Material in Hispanic and Portuguese America and Asia David Hook XII The Contemporary Return of the Matter of Britain to Iberian Letters (XIXth to XXth Centuries) Juan Miguel Zarandona

About the Author :
Academic market: students, graduates, academic staff, researchers; Arthurian enthusiasts

Review :
"This volume is indeed an outstanding achievement, a tour de force which has resulted in a remarkable book. Because of its ample chronological scope, and of the vast chronological period it covers, this Arthur of the Iberians is a veritable Summa Arturiana Hispanica, a research tool which will be essential to any scholar wishing to investigate the presence of Arthurian material in the Hispanic world."--Juan-Carlos Conde, Magdalen College Oxford "This is a superb collaborative enterprise by eleven leading authorities. Ranging across the Romance languages of Iberia, including their territories overseas, and extending chronologically into the twentieth century, it takes into account the many scholarly developments and discoveries since the classic surveys by Entwistle (1925) and Lida de Malkiel (1959). The essays study in detail how the Matter of Britain spread widely in the Peninsula, shaped home-grown genres such as chivalric and sentimental romances, including Don Quixote, and even came to serve at times as a model for life in the early modern period. Edited with skill and precision by David Hook, this book will establish itself for many years to come as an invaluable resource for scholars, graduate and undergraduate students, as well as the general reader." --Edwin Williamson, University of Oxford