‘Castellumquondam, castellumquefuturum’: Ecotones in Arthurian Legends

Brassell, Catherine

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Description

Title

‘Castellumquondam, castellumquefuturum’: Ecotones in Arthurian Legends

Author(s)

Brassell, Catherine

Issue Date

2018-04

Keyword(s)

English

Abstract

Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, Great Britain has often invoked the famous legends of King Arthur, the ‘Once and Future King’ ever since Geoffrey of Monmouth first documented the site in 1138 as the alleged place of Arthur’s conception. Over the course of the nearly two thousand years since its construction, the castle has both evolved and deteriorated through several significant literary periods of British history, such as the Roman occupation, the early and late Middle Ages, and through the Victorian era into modernity. In each time, the interpretation of Arthurian legend has changed as indicated by its transformations in literary texts as well as by the artifacts of material culture collected through archaeological investigation. In connection to Tintagel’s natural degradation, my research contributes to the tradition of Arthurian scholarship through its analysis of the Arthurian legends with an ecocriticallens of a phenomenon called ecotones, spaciallandscapes which exist between boundaries and time. Similar to Tintagel’s architecture, caught in limbo between its identity as a castle and its ultimate erosion back into nature, ecotones reflect the inevitable shift of landscape features, those that are man-made and organic, evident as much in literature as in reality.

Type of Resource

• text
• image

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/99791

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2018 Catherine Brassell

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