TOP 10 MYTHOLOGY BOOKS (HONORABLE MENTION: ARTHURIAN LEGEND)

 

For mine is the grail quest –
round table & siege perilous
fisher king & waste land
bleeding lance & dolorous stroke
adventurous bed & questing beast

 

That’s right – I don’t just have a top ten mythology books, or my usual twenty special mentions. I also have honorable mentions.

My usual rule is that I have no cap on the number of individual entries I can list as honorable mention for any given top ten if there are enough entries beyond my top ten or special mentions – and I tend to just list them in chronological or date order, usually date of publication for books.

However, for mythology books, I have some different rules, except the lack of any cap or numerical limit on honorable mention.

My primary rule is that I have honorable mentions for books in selected subjects of mythology, where there are enough entries for that subject (potentially racking them up for a top ten in that subject) – as here, with the subject of Arthurian legend.

And where I have honorable mentions for particular subjects, I quickly recap the entries on that subject from my top ten or special mentions first before moving on to my further honorable mentions, in tier rankings and numerical sequence albeit with some degree of chronological or date order.

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

TO RECAP ARTHURIAN LEGEND ENTRIES FROM MY TOP 10 MYTHOLOGY BOOKS (SPECIAL MENTION)

 

 

 

 

(1) THOMAS BULFINCH –

BULFINCH’S MYTHOLOGY (1867)

 

Bulfinch’s Mythology still remains a classic reference (and handily in the public domain) and his second volume as originally published, The Age of Chivalry (as opposed to the Age of Fable for classical and other mythology) was devoted to Arthurian legend.

 

RATING:
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

HONORABLE MENTION: A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

 

(2) THOMAS MALORY – LE MORTE D’ARTHUR

(PETER ACKROYD – THE DEATH OF KING ARTHUR)

 

One source of Arthurian legend stands foremost among them all – Le Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory (or Mallory) in the fifteenth century, as “the definitive version of Arthurian legend in popular culture, at least for the English-speaking world”, or dare I say it, the once and future king…of Arthurian legend.

That’s pretty impressive for a version written about a millennium or so after the legendary historical setting of its subject in sub-Roman Britain. In large part that was because it was effectively a codification – what TV Tropes calls an adaptation distillation – of the works of its “many, many literary predecessors, including multiple layers of retcons and crossovers”.

Among those predecessors were the various French texts, from which surprisingly many elements we now associate with Arthurian legend originated – and which I’m sure is the Arthurian in-joke behind the obnoxious French soldiers in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

That might account for the gratuitous French title – or more precisely medieval Anglo-Norman French title – translating to The Death of Arthur. Despite that title, the books otherwise “in a form of Late Middle English virtually indistinguishable from Early Modern English (if you modernize the spelling, what you get is virtually indistinguishable from the Elizabethan English of Shakespeare’s day)” – although pronounced very differently due to the great vowel shifts between medieval and modern English.

In turn, Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur has been almost endlessly adapted since, although my favorite adaption remains cinematic rather than literary – the 1981 film Excalibur, just narrowly ahead of the aforementioned Monty Python and The Holy Grail (which funnily enough still remains one of the most faithful adaptations to Arthurian legend).

And yes – I don’t claim to have read Malory in his Late Middle English but instead prefer the adaptations to Modern English, of which there is a long list. Just to name my personal favorites – Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, and T.H. White’s The Once and Future King.

Hence this honorable mention also the keynote entry for this special mention – Peter Ackroyd’s The Death of King Arthur.

 

RATING:
A-TIER (TOP TIER)