This chapter explores Chrétien’s foundational role in the creation and dissemination of Arthurian literature. It begins with a description of the sociohistorical context in which he wrote and a review of the diverse sources on which he drew. He chose as the protagonists of his romances five of Arthur’s knights and created a gallery of attractive and enterprising women to complement their adventures. An examination of the emotions of these female characters, which are tempered by political concerns, informs this essay. The main focus is on Chrétien’s originality – the skill and sophistication of his poetic art, including a masterly use of intertextuality and interlacing. Chrétien delighted in keeping his audience at a distance, inviting critical reflection. The chapter concludes with a brief consideration of the myriad translations and adaptations his romances inspired in Francophone and other language areas, extending his influence across a wide geographical area and across the ages.

The area covered by Romance languages, literatures and cultures between 1550 and 1800 is characterised by a decline in the Arthurian tradition and by exchanges which led to the dissolution of the Arthurian romance into the chivalric narrative. The vogue for Carolingian matter may well have led, episodically, to the preservation of Arthurian memories, but overall, it accelerated the decline of the Round Table romances, particularly in Italy. The Iberian and Italian areas promoted heroes such as Amadis and Roland, who were destined for European success, whilst France recovers the Beau Tenebreux, thanks to Herberay des Essarts. During that period, the erosion of the Matter of Britain was more marked in the Roman area than in Britain, where Arthur remained something of a national symbol. Including these derivative heroes (Amadis, Roland/Orlando) allows us to bring to light the specificities of the areas under consideration.

‘Non-Anglophone Arthurian cinema’ is a diffuse collection of films held together only by the fact that they are not in English and they all bear some kind of nominal or narrative relationship to the tradition of Arthurian story-telling. Despite scant evidence of continuous tradition, including between films in the same language, and long gaps in the corpus, three main strands can be identified: cinematic versions of the Tristan and Iseult legend, films about Perceval and the Holy Grail, and films centred on Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere. The third strand is minor: one of the most notable aspects of non-Anglophone Arthurian cinema is the relative paucity of films about Arthur himself, suggesting a distinct relationship to the Arthurian tradition. This corpus of Arthurian screen texts differs from Anglophone cinema in its narrative emphasis, avant-garde techniques, and in its engagement with cultural, historical and ideological concerns that extend well beyond the Anglosphere.

From the medieval to the modern, King Arthur is habitually but not neccessarily associated with white male sovereignty authorised by violence against racially Othered peoples. Arthur is always raced but he is not essentially white. This chapter is interested in both the lacunae and the articulations of ‘race’ in Arthurian scholarship, and in what emerges when we pay attention to the racial Self as well as Others in medieval and modern Arthuriana. Situated in premodern critical race studies, and exploring African American Arthuriana in particular, the essay argues that paying attention to the embodiment of Arthur once again reveals the protean nature of race itself.

This chapter traces the growth of Tennyson’s Idylls of the King from his earliest ideas for an Arthurian epic in his notebooks from the 1830s to the completion of his twelve-book epic in 1886. It examines his treatment of his Arthurian sources, most importantly Malory, and attempts to capture the reactions of nineteenth-century readers to the Idylls by drawing on a range of contemporary reviews. It is difficult to overestimate Tennyson’s role in recentring the Arthurian legend in popular consciousness, and the final section briefly explores the influence of the Idylls on aspects of Victorian popular culture.

Arthurian topics feature in medieval mural painting and sculpture in architecture from the early twelfth century onwards. The ‘spatial’ aspects of these art forms were ideal for medieval patrons to represent and promote themselves to others. They competed through monumental art – be it in their own residence, a town hall, or a church – to show their identity and status. This chapter traces the main trends, iconographical topics, and influences, with consideration of the social and political function of the representation of Arthur and his knights in medieval monumental art.