67 pages • 2 hours read
Lev GrossmanThe Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Cultural Context: The Continuing Legend of King Arthur
The Arthurian lore, from which The Bright Sword draws, refers to medieval and chivalric literature featuring the legendary King Arthur. It is unclear if Arthur was based on a real figure, with historians speculating that Arthur could have been a British general fighting the Saxons in the sixth century CE or could be a composite of a Roman general, a Welsh leader, and a Saxon chieftain. What is clearer is that the fictionalized Arthur exists in the fifth or sixth century of post-Roman Britain, a time of great flux. The stories about Arthur were only written down at least 300 years after this period. This gives the lore an anachronistic quality since it transplants medieval chivalric and heraldic motifs onto a sixth-century milieu. For instance, there were no castles or knights in the sixth century, but these are important elements of later Arthurian tales.
The earliest recorded reference to Arthur is from Welsh sources, such as the 12th-century Welsh romance Culhwch and Olwen, in which legendary King Arthur aids his cousin Culhwch in performing the perilous tasks that will win him Olwen. Medieval writers, such as Geoffrey of Monmouth (in the 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae) and Chrétien de Troyes (in several 12th-century chivalric romances in French) add elements like the Holy Grail, as well as a young Arthur pulling the divine sword 
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