{"id":30551,"date":"2015-11-16T06:30:22","date_gmt":"2015-11-15T17:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=30551"},"modified":"2015-11-15T21:36:39","modified_gmt":"2015-11-15T08:36:39","slug":"the-matter-of-britain-part-2-arthurian-influenced-fantasy-for-juniorya-readers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2015\/11\/16\/the-matter-of-britain-part-2-arthurian-influenced-fantasy-for-juniorya-readers\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Matter Of Britain” Part 2: Arthurian-Influenced Fantasy for Junior\/YA Readers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week I reflected on how well Mary Stewart’s The Hollow Hills<\/em> had stood the test of time<\/a>, which led me to check out other Arthurian-influenced Fantasy, for adult readers<\/a>, on Friday.<\/p>\n

I also promised to come back in a day or so and discuss YA and\/or Junior fiction that addressed “the Matter of Britain” (i.e. the Arthurian cycle) in some way. Firstly, though, I should stress that this is not intended to be an exhaustive list, but rather a look at once or two examples that I consider significant in some way. That being said, here goes. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

\"Sword<\/a>Jane Smiley described TH White’s Arthurian “collection”, The Once And Future King <\/em><\/strong>(1958)<\/em>,<\/em><\/strong> as “a serious work, delightful and witty in many ways and yet very sombre overall.”<\/em> Given this, some may argue that both the collected work and the initial, contributing novel, The Sword In The Stone<\/em><\/strong> (1938), are as much adult as Junior or YA works. Yet I first read and enjoyed The Sword In The Stone<\/em><\/strong> as a Junior reader and believe the story works well at that level. Unlike Mary Stewart’s trilogy — which you may recall approached the Arthur story in the context of \u201cthe Roman-British setting (in the early years of the Saxon invasions)\u201d <\/em>— TH White adheres to the Middle Ages’ setting of Malory’s Morte D’Arthur<\/em><\/strong>. In fact I recall\u00a0The Sword In The Stone<\/em><\/strong> as a vivid portrayal of Middle Ages life, yet with a modern twist through Arthur’s preoccupation with “total war.”<\/p>\n

\"Weirdstone<\/a>Alan Garner’s The Weirdstone of Brisingamen<\/em><\/strong> (1960) and The Moon of Gomrath<\/em><\/strong> (1963), while not Arthur retellings, drew on the Arthurian cycle with characters such as The Lady of the Lake relatively prominent in the story. The duology also marked a turn toward the Celtic mythos that characterised Mary Stewart’s adult trilogy, a decade later.<\/p>\n

\"Dark<\/a>The children’s series that authoritatively drew the Arthurian legends and Celtic mythology together was Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising<\/strong> sequence, which commenced with Over Sea, Under Stone<\/em><\/strong> in 1965. The second and probably best-known book, The Dark Is Rising<\/strong><\/em>, was published in 1973, with the 5th and final novel (Silver On The Tree<\/em><\/strong>) appearing in 1977.<\/p>\n

Like Alan Garner’s duology, the sequence focuses on contemporary children who are caught up in a battle between light and dark, where they interact with aspects of the Arthurian (and other) legends. The Grail is central to the story, as is the character of Merriman Lyon (Merlin.)<\/p>\n

\"Hawk<\/a>Gillian Bradshaw’s The Hawk of May<\/em><\/strong> was published in 1980, beginning a YA trilogy that retold the Arthur story from the perspective of Gawain (Gwalchmai), the son of King Lot and Queen Morgawse of Orkney. The following two books in the series are Kingdom of Summer<\/strong><\/em> (1982) and In Winter’s Shadow<\/em><\/strong> (1983): the omnibus was published as Down The Long Wind<\/strong>. Like Mary Stewart and others, Bradshaw’s book is set in the early years of the Saxon invasions, but is probably more magical in its use of Celtic mythology, with Gawain being transported to the Blessed Realm in The Hawk of May<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Weathermonger\"<\/a>The final Arthurian-influenced story I’d like to mention is Peter Dickinson’s The Weathermonger<\/em><\/strong> (1968), the first book in his Changes<\/strong> trilogy. This is a lively story of a brother and sister, Geoffrey and Sally, who embark on a mission to discover why the British Isles have returned to a medieval way of life. To find out the hows and whys of the Arthurian influence, though, you will have to read it for yourself. (It’s worth it, though.)<\/p>\n

As I said at the outset, this is by no means an exhaustive list. I have also chosen to focus on what I consider the classic era of Arthurian retellings and “Matter of Britain” Fantasy.<\/p>\n

But perhaps you have a more recent Kids\/YA (Arthur-related) read you’d like to champion — if so, I’d love to see your comment. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I reflected on how well Mary Stewart’s The Hollow Hills had stood the test of time, which led me to check out other Arthurian-influenced Fantasy, for adult readers, on Friday. I also promised to come back in a day or so and discuss YA and\/or Junior fiction that addressed “the Matter of Britain” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-epicfantasy","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30551"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30568,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30551\/revisions\/30568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}