i have reached the stage of researching Arthurian literature where i needed an entire shelf.
what began as:
“i should probably read a few source texts”
has somehow evolved into:
* medieval Welsh material
* Marie de France
* Chrétien de Troyes
* Malory
* Tennyson
* Tolkien
* approximately seventeen different versions of the same story told by increasingly dramatic people over the course of a thousand years
every time i think i understand something i discover another knight, another manuscript, another cursed family tree, another prophecy, another Morgan, another Gawain, and at least three more people claiming descent from Troy.
the funniest part is that i started this because i wanted background information for a story.
the story has not become less complicated.
i have simply become better informed about exactly how complicated it is.
anyway the Arthuriana shelf now lives above where my desk is soon to go so i can look up while writing and be judged simultaneously by medieval poets, Victorian poets, Tolkien, and Sir Thomas Malory.
which feels fair.
