Arthurian Literature began shortly after Arthurian Studies, and was originally intended as an annual volume which would print long essays. Many journals were reluctant to include anything much over 25,000 words, and this new approach was welcomed. But it transpired that after the fourth volume, the supply of such articles – largely from the bottom drawers of scholars’ desks, where they had languished for some years – was exhausted, and normality took over. It is now an interdisciplinary journal devoted to the critical study of all aspects of the Arthurian legend. The range of scholarly inquiry is wide, from medieval and post-medieval Arthuriana across all European traditions, to global modern Arthurian medievalism. Its subject matter is equally diverse: topics have included manuscript study, literary analysis (from traditional to theoretical approaches), source-study, and explorations of Arthurian heraldry, art, or music, as well as historical and geo-political investigations. From volume 12 onwards, a series of distinguished Arthurian scholars have acted as editors.
ARTHURIAN ARCHIVES
Several major texts and translations have appeared in Arthurian Studies, but this left a wide range of less well-known material languishing either in obscure or defective editions, and largely without translations. The texts in Arthurian Archives are all printed as parallel versions with the original and the translation on facing pages. Many texts are newly edited, some for the first time, and in most cases new translations have been included. The series runs to twenty volumes in six languages, including Norse and Dutch, and offers a very wide range of lesser known but intriguing romances.
A complete listing of the articles published in Arthurian Literature and the texts translated in Arthurian Archives will be posted shortly.