This chapter addresses the complex theme of the penetration of the Arthurian subject in Italy through the circulation of manuscripts; the various forms that characterised this specific reception, ranging from narrative works adhering to French models to more autonomous reworkings, such as compilations (Rustichello da Pisa) and the cantari in octaves, truly anticipated the great epic poems of Boiardo and Ariosto. For a long time these texts, especially the vernacular versions, have been known among scholars by virtue of their linguistic relevance as the earliest witnesses in Italian literary prose, but it should not be forgotten that they saw the light thanks to the intensive Italian production and transcription of manuscripts in their original language. This phenomenon characterised most of the manuscript tradition of Arthurian romances in Italy (Tristan en prose, Guiron le Courtois cycle), and imposes today the use of refined and complex codicological, historical and palaeographical analyses.

This chapter explores how multinationals were both embedded in gender norms and actively shaped representations of masculinity, femininity, and domesticity. Multinationals influenced gender roles through the products they marketed to male and female consumers, their gendered labor organization in production sites and company towns, and their hiring practices, which either expanded or restricted opportunities for women. Rather than following a single pattern, multinationals often created hybrid systems, adapting to local gender norms. Through case studies on household technologies – such as Singer sewing machines and Tupperware – and consumer and cultural products – such as Barbie, cosmetics, films, and gendered labor structures in company towns and managerial hierarchies – the chapter highlights multinationals as “gender accomplices.” It examines the factors that led them to reinforce rather than challenge existing norms, shedding light on their role in both maintaining and shaping gendered social structures.

This chapter takes up the complex and fluid topic of gender in relation to Arthurian romance. It explores the intersections of gender with chivalry, emotion and agency in the twelfth-century romances of Chrétien de Troyes and Marie de France and their fourteenth-century English reworkings; the gendered treatment of desire, constraint and identity in Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale; and finally the formative role of gender across Arthur’s reign in Malory’s Morte Darthur. Engagement with gender roles, emotional experience and the place and predicament of women is built into Arthurian romance from its inception, reflecting courtly interests in the nuances of behaviour and feeling. Medieval Arthurian romances repeatedly treat women as wielding profound power, including through unorthodox means of magic, but they also address the constraints of gender roles for women. Malory’s Morte Darthur illuminates the crucial part played by gender in the narrative of the rise and fall of Arthur’s kingdom, and the conflict between heterosexual and homosocial relations.

World-gothic as a project (where the hyphen indicates a world-systems relational perspective) is not meant to simply expand our horizon, by studying gothic that arises beyond the culture industries of the United States and Europe; it looks to redraw the terms and frames of reference used. A world-gothic approach does not simply seek to highlight non-American-European productions within already existing Eurocentric literary categories, lineages of influence, and definition by generic traits. World-gothic looks instead to change our perspective of how we understand gothic, even for those works already long studied and taught. Using the example of the undead, this chapter examines the time and place of gothic as registering the spasms of the capitalist world-system.

This chapter considers Arthuriana in two distinct linguistic zones: the Celtic languages (excluding Welsh) and Older Scots.  The Arthur of the ‘Gaelic world’ is a figure associated with marvellous, and sometimes comic, adventures – the overtly political themes that persist in Welsh and English writing are usually absent. In the Cornish and Breton regions, Arthur appears in politically complex hagiographical and prophetic material. Older Scots also offers complex and consistent engagement with politics, though from a different vantage point. Here, the dual themes of sovereignty and advice to princes are closely related both to one another and to the long and complex history of contemporary Anglo-Scots political and literary relations. At issue too are crucial questions of geography and national identity.

Tracing back to the uncertain origins of the Tristan legend, this chapter deals first with the earliest written forms of the story of Tristan and Isolde. It then describes the spread of the story throughout Europe, its gradual Arthurianisation, and discusses the place it may have occupied in courtly literature. The Prose Tristan concludes the rivalry between Tristan and Lancelot initiated by Chrétien de Troyes. At the same time, it completes Tristan’s integration into the canon of the Arthurian cycle. In later romances, Tristan is then regarded as equal to Lancelot on the battlefield, and the greatest of the knight-poets.

The period between 1500 and 1700 is sometimes associated with a dip in Arthur’s popularity. In fact, this was a time of Arthurian reinvention, rather than decline: if Arthur did not appear quite as frequently, his appearances nevertheless reached a new peak in terms of their creativity and variety. Increased scepticism surrounding Arthur had a freeing effect, allowing him to be invoked in new and different contexts, from satire to archery shows, and pre-existing Arthurian narratives and geographies were revised. Perhaps unexpectedly, Arthur’s diversification seems to have peaked during the years when Arthur’s narrative was the most potentially dangerous, such as England’s Interregnum and the early Restoration years. At the same time, popular medieval Arthuriana continued to be consumed in manuscript and print; and many local Arthurian traditions were first recorded and brought to wider knowledge during these years.

This chapter examines the evolving relationship between multinationals and taxation, highlighting the historical dynamics of tax planning, avoidance, and regulation. The history of multinationals and taxation is marked by ongoing tensions between corporate strategies, state interests, and international regulatory efforts. From the nineteenth century onward national tax systems – initially designed for domestic economies – struggled to adapt. Early tax policies varied, with some countries taxing companies based on residence and others taxing based on the source of income. By the interwar period, rising corporate tax rates and concerns over double taxation led multinationals to develop sophisticated tax planning strategies. The post–World War II era saw the proliferation of offshore financial centers, often in newly decolonized nations seeking investment. From the 1980s, globalization and financial deregulation intensified tax competition, enabling multinationals to shift profits and reduce tax liabilities. In response, international organizations have sought reforms, but tax arbitrage remains a persistent challenge and a key element of global capitalism.

This chapter explores the transformation of medieval Arthurian knowledge in early modern Germany, starting with the last Meisterlieder from Hans Sachs and his followers till the middle of the sixteenth century, when medieval Arthurian literature gradually fell out of fashion. Only the Wigalois adaptations and the Prose Tristan were still printed until the late seventeenth century, and a few Arthurian topoi remained as well during this ‘Arthurian break’: the name of the sword of the king, the adultery of the queen and the opulence of the king’s court. The rediscovery of medieval literature in Germany after 1750 by Bodmer and his followers did not manage to remodel and adapt this material but instead connected the medieval tradition with classical models.

This chapter considers the Middle English Arthurian verse romances, and the ways in which these texts interact with the genre of Middle English romance at large. First, the chapter explores the relationship between expected audiences and the choice to write in verse when considering Arthurian subject matter. The chapter then turns to romances usually designated as non-Arthurian, and asks: to what extent do Arthur and his knights creep into narratives set outside, beyond or without the Arthurian court, and what might this tell us about the cultural impact of Arthurian material in medieval England? Finally, a number of romance tropes – the fair unknown, the loathly lady, and intruders of all kinds – are used to show Middle English verse romance’s potential to both reinforce and disrupt Arthurian courtly values.

This chapter outlines distinctions between national and nationalist uses of folk music as a frame for discussing its slipperiness as a concept and the political and identitarian implications of its performance, its collection and publication, its use in education and in religion, and its adoption into works of art music. Consideration of folk practices in Britain, France, Spain, and the USA from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries is combined with special attention to expressions of Celtic otherness within nation states. The chapter also addresses the manner in which sub-national musical nationalisms (or ethnic nationalisms), operate as positive symbols of subaltern resistance and celebration when folk or folk-like material is imported into the art music of late nineteenth-century concert halls. At the same time, the chapter addresses the ‘primitivism’ of folk music and the connections nineteenth-century thinkers made between national folk musics and the precepts of social Darwinism.

Sir Thomas Malory’s late fiftenth-century prose work Le Morte Darthur is the most substantial Middle English account of the legendary king, and has strongly influenced later Arthurian writers, including Tennyson, Twain and T. H. White. We know little about  Malory and his reasons for writing (in prison); was it a commission? The Morte was printed by William Caxton, the first English printer, and frequently reprinted, but only one manuscript copy survives. I discuss Malory’s adaptation of the familiar story, using a remarkable range of sources in several languages. He gives surprising prominence to Lancelot, not a popular figure in the English tradition, and chooses to include the Grail Quest, in which most knights fail. I consider Malory’s deceptively plain style, his values, his attitudes to women, and also his historical context; he fought in the Wars of the Roses, so Arthur’s rise and fall must have had particular significance for him.

This chapter explores the cross-cultural dissemination of Arthurian literature through the lens of a single case study: the lai of Lanval, attributed to Marie de France. It begins by discussing the figure of Marie, her works, and her compositional practice, situated in the wider twelfth-century contexts of multilingual, cross-Channel literary cultures and the development of Arthurian narratives and vernacular literary forms. The study then considers the dissemination of Lanval in terms of its manuscript tradition, as well as through analogues, adaptations, translations, and other textual traces or allusions. As such, the study follows both Lanval and Lanval across medieval Europe, through the Welsh Marches, England, northern France, Flanders, Norway, Swabia and Austria.