Medieval in the Modern World

Medieval in the Modern World

Arthur, Arthurian, Beowulf, Jorge-Luis Borges, Robert Bresson, cinema, fantasy, mythology, myth, legend, legends, myths, films, film, Neil Gaiman, John Gardner, Guy Gavriel Kay, Seamus Heaney, Geoffrey Hill, literature, Andrew Lynch, Monty Python, Perth, poetry, Randolph Stow, Alfred Tennyson, Mark Twain, UWA, university, universities, University of Western Australia, WA, Western Australia, Robert Zemeckis

A second and third year undergraduate unit taught at The University of Western Australia. The unit was created by Andrew Lynch and features novels, poetry and film from the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries that reinterpreted medieval literature and themes. Texts include Tennyson’s ‘The Passing of Arthur’, the film ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’, Twain’s ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’, Gardner’s ‘Grendel’, the Zemeckis/Gaiman film ‘Beowulf’, poetry by Borges, Hill, and Heaney, Bresson’s ‘Lancelot du Lac’, and Gavriel Kay’s ‘A Song for Arbonne’. Of particular note is the inclusion of works by Australian authors: Kate Forsyth’s ‘Morgan of the Fay’, Maggie Hamilton’s ‘Merlin’, Juliet Mariller’s ‘Son of the Shadows’, ‘The Girl Green as Elderflower’ by Randolph Stow, and Jules Watson’s ‘The White Mare’.

Lynch, Andrew

The University of Western Australia

The University of Western Australia

February 2009

Andrew Lynch, the University of Western Australia

Link to UWA Undergraduate Handbook

English