Myth Making and National Identity: Re-Reading Arthur in the Aftermath of the Glorious Revolution,

Abstract

Scholars have largely accepted that interest in Arthurianism dwindled throughout the seventeenth century and that traditional Arthurian themes of kingship, monarchical power, and national unity had little relevance to Enlightenment audiences.

What this narrative often fails to account for, however, are the ways in which the Arthurian tradition adapted and re-emerged as a result of the significant political and societal changes of the seventeenth century.

This paper redresses the misperception that the late seventeenth century was an era bereft of Arthurianism by examining both canonical and neglected works to show that the period developed unique and distinctive appropriations of Arthur that began a process of explicitly intertwining the Arthurian narrative an exploration of nationalism and national identity that continued into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

By exploring depictions of Arthur in Dryden’s King Arthur, or The British Worthy (1691) and Richard Blackmore’s epics Prince Arthur (1695) and King Arthur (1697), my paper will consider how the malleable nature of Arthurian myth made it eminently suitable for reworking to address contemporary cultural concerns and capable of interpretation via numerous lenses, including contradictory Williamite and Jacobite readings.

Keywords: Arthurianism, Medievalism, Cultural Studies, Nationalism, Seventeenth-Century