Josh Gates' "Expedition Unknown" takes viewers on a journey through Summerset County to unravel the mysteries of Glastonbury, diving into narratives surrounding the Celts, Joseph of Arimathea, the Holy Grail, Avalon, and King Arthur. When explaining these tales, Gates tends to blend stories that are fact and fiction. Gates' short narrative explores Glastonbury and examines its common stories to discover if they are justified true beliefs or pure legends. His view affirms the importance of historical figures such as Joseph of Arimathea and how they highlight Glastonbury's historical significance, but Gates lacks a certain clarity that should allow viewers to fully understand the figures’ history embedded in the site. These people led to the …show more content…
Similarly, the association of Glastonbury with Avalon and the mythical realm of Arthurian legend is based on literary tradition and folklore rather than on verifiable historical evidence. Gates skims through many myths and ideas concerning Glastonbury, and while he does provide information he fails to give reason for the warrant of these stories. Warrant, in Gates’ view, seems most appropriate when looking at the historical figure Joseph of Arimathea. Gates introduces him to the scene around one thousand years after the Celtic tribe's arrival. This man came to spread a new religion called Christianity and founded the first church in Britain. Near the tor, Joseph supposedly stabs his staff into the ground at the top of the hill and it grows into a thorn tree. Examining its botany, biologists were able to determine that the species of tree is only found in the Middle East, which validates the story of Joseph establishing the church because he came from Palestine. The main part of the story that does not warrant is its relation to the Holy …show more content…
One critique relates to the necessity of a clearer understanding of the cultural factors that have shaped Glastonbury's mythology. Exploring Roman influence during Julius Caesar and Emperor Claudius’s invasions could have provided Gates with a deeper understanding of Glastonbury's history, which was reflected in the myths he discussed. The Roman invasions gave context into the time of Joseph's arrival, which would have likely given Gates a segway to explain people's reactions to Joseph. Gates's presentation occasionally blurs the lines between historical fact and myth, presenting legendary accounts alongside historical evidence without clearly distinguishing the two, which may lead viewers to believe unwarranted stories are fact. This is what he does while talking about the Autherian legend. Gates talks about the probability of ArthurAurtur not being a king, but rather a warrior, but then he states that Aurthur went to the island of Avalon where he did, yet was discovered 500 years later by monks at Glastonbury buried with his wife Guinivere. This may be confusing to his audience because he did not clarify which parts of the narrative were
Davies, C. S. L. ‘Popular Religion and the Pilgrimage of Grace’ in Order and Disorder in Early Modern England, eds. Anthony Fletcher and John Stevenson (1985).
The Arthurian cycle shows a sporadic awareness of the impossibility of mere humans fulfilling all the ideals that Arthur and his court represent. The story of Lancelot and Guenevere, Merlin's imprisonment by Nimu‘, and numerous other instances testify to the recognition of this tension between the real and the unrealistic.
Main Idea: The importance of Shakespeare, the Bible, and fairy tales is that they are all myths. Myth in this case doesn’t mean that they aren’t true, but rather that they are stories that seek to, as Foster puts it, “explain ourselves to ourselves.” Myths are important and are a part of a culture’s collective memory. Here, in Western culture, we are mostly associated with Ancient Greek civilization and the myths that lie there. We can see references to those myths in all sorts of literature.
Freeman also spends enough time describing the difficulties and contradictions in the sources of Alexander's story that the reader can gain a sense of what may have happened while also still having a firm grasp of the his opinion of what he thinks is the truth. Some of the other texts briefly touched on the difficulties with the sources and the contradictions between them, but did a poor job conveying the opinion of the author, or the reliability of the various sources. Freeman also spends some time describing the history of Alexander. He touched briefly on Alexander's father, mother, and mentors and how they shaped him and to give a sense of him as a person. Without an understanding of where Alexander came from it is more difficult to gauge the validity of the disparate sources. With an understanding of who Alexander was as a person researchers can better understand his personality and then make better determinations if something seems out of character or not.
With minimal amounts of historical documentation, it is difficult to determine whether a church survived prior to Westminster Abbey (Internet Chronology). While the Venerable Bede provides no records of a pre-existing church, folklore attributes the establishment to King Serbert of the East Saxons (Internet St. Edward). He is also recognized for founding St. Paul’s Cathedral in London (St. Edward). King Serbert built the Benedictine church in 616 AD, after a fisherman is said to have been on the Thames river when he witnessed a vision of St. Peter (Internet Saint Peter). St. Peter is given credit for allegedly consecrating the church himself (Internet St. Edward). One of the Twelve Apostles, the Gospel mentions that he was the first to profess his faith believing Jesus was the Son of God (Internet Chronology). Charters found in the Abbey support the existing folklore (Chronology). Records prove that King Offa made a grant for the monastery in 785 ‘to St. Peter and the needy people of God in Thorney in the terrible, awful place which is called “act Westmunster”’ (Chronology). The charter was also significant in first naming Westminster, setting it apart from its brother to the east, St. Paul’s Cathedral (Internet St. Edward). From Glastonbury to Westminster, St. Dunstan, Bishop of London, brought twelve monks to the Abbey around 960 AD (St. Edward). A charter granting land to the church in 961, by King Edgar, refers to a church existing in the area (Internet Chronology). However a place of worship originated there, it is Edward the Confessor who is credited with the establishment of Westminster Abbey.
This insistence creates two problems. One is a problem of representation, in which the books confirm the strict illusion-reality dualism so characteristic of most contemporary medieval fictions. The second is a problem of interpretation, since they finally appear to undermine the very values of imagination and tradition that Cooper wishes to espouse.
Although one might expect a literary work with moral seriousness as its theme to be homiletic, GGK lacks the preachy tone because the Gawain¬-poet chooses to write the poem as a romance inspired by Arthurian legend rather than following the same format of the poems Patience and Cleanness. This, perhaps, is what leads Sandra Pierson Prior to her assertion that for the most part, romance poets care more about telling a good story than “spending time examining the implications of those events,” and consequently, GGK should just be read for the romanc...
It is in this instance, and others like it that we see another example of the importance of historicity. By studying these works, we can gain insight into ancient cultures, and even hypothesize about the past. If a work is highly historically accurate in other respects, it might lead one to believe that the other accounts in the work are accurate. Through this method, we may discover some of history through works of literature, history that records may not contain. Yet through this method we can only speculate, we cannot be certain of the accuracy of our results.
...h century or today, is human and subject to failings, as well. Gawain learned his lesson from the Green Knight and communicated it to Arthur's court. I believe that the author hopes that his audience will take the message to heart, as well.
Sir Gawain is, undoubtably, the most varied of the Arthurian characters: from his first minor appearance as Gwalchmei in the Welsh tales to his usually side-line participation in the modern retelling of the tales, no other character has gone from such exalted heights (being regarded as a paragon of virtue) to such dismal depths (being reduced to a borderline rapist, murderer, and uncouth bore), as he. This degree of metamorphosis in character, however, has allowed for a staggering number of different approaches and studies in Gawain.
The Complications of Sexuality in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Gawain's travels in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight suggest a world in which home--i.e., Camelot--is "normal," while away--the opposing castle of Hautdesert where Gawain perforce spends his Christmas vacation--is "other," characterized by unfamiliarity, dislocation, perversity. And in fact the atmosphere at Hautdesert appears somewhat peculiar, with various challenges to "normal" sexual identity, and with permutations of physical intimacy, or at least the suggestion of such intimacy, that are, to say the least, surprising. The typical journey of medieval romance juxtaposes a "real" world where things and people behave according to expectation with a "magical" world in which the usual rules are suspended. According to this paradigm, we might expect that this poem would place Hautdesert outside the bounds of tradition, separated by its difference from the expectations that govern Camelot and the remainder of the Arthurian world. However, Gawain's journey away from Camelot and back is framed by references, in the first and last stanzas, to the journeys into exile of Aeneas and of Brutus, the legendary founder of Britain, that complicate this apparent opposition.
Stanley, Tim. "Give Me That Old Time Religion." History Today 63.8 (2013): 50. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.CHURCH, S. D. "Paganism In Conversion-Age Anglo-Saxon England: The Evidence Of Bede's Ecclesiastical History Reconsidered." History 93.310 (2008): 162-180. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.Mayfield, Tyler. "Hebrew Bible." Masterplots II: Christian Literature (2007): 1-7. Literary Reference Center. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.Alward, Emily. "The Soul Of Christianity." Masterplots II: Christian Literature (2007): 1-2. Literary Reference Center. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.Hallissy, Margaret. "Christianity, The Pagan Past, And The Rituals Of Construction In William Golding's The Spire." Critique 49.3 (2008): 319-331. Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.
The Mists of Avalon's politics and intrigue take place at a time when Christianity is taking over the island-nation of Britain; Christianity vs. Faery, and God vs. Goddess are dominant themes. Marion Zimmer Bradley lets her opinion on Christianity show through with shocking statements such as: “Then (Morgaine) sighed and said, ‘ I think it is a sin to believe that God can be cruel or vindictive, and you would make him meaner than the worst of his priests.” The ancient druid religions are presented as kinder and gentler while Christianity is raging through Europe. The Mists of Avalon is laced with religious philosophy that adds to the atmosphere of this entertaining story.
...ian legends are true, they must be taken lightly for it should be assumed that everything in print may be amplified to ten times what the real Arthur may have accomplished during his lifetime.
The myths he used gave to his plays, without any effort on his part, some of those larger dimensions of authority which the modern dramatist must create out of nothing if his play is to be more than a passing entertainment. The myths had the authority of history, for myth is in one of its aspects the only history of an age that kept no records. . . . the myths served as typical patterns of the conduct of man and the manifestation of the gods (85).