King Arthur in Legends and Literature, Introduction

Introduction

Legends generally describe stories that at least in their core are based on reality, although they usually contain a lot of fantasy and exaggeration hiding the truth. Therefore the problem in analysing legends or in tracing them back to their historical origin is that most legends have their roots in a time where events were usually not recorded by historians but passed on from generation to generation by oral tradition. That makes it very difficult to distinguish between exaggeration and truth.

Legends are no stories once written and never changed again. On the contrary, they have been adapted, amended and retold, translated and written down several times by different authors who changed the story for different reasons: Some may have changed it because they wanted to give the story their individual handwriting or to make it more spectacular, others may have done it for ideological or political reasons.

The legend of King Arthur as we know it today is one of those legends. It did not appear and was told from than on in a certain version. The Arthurian legend has been evolving – unlike other legends- from a source that meant to be a historical report. This origin story was taken up several times by various poets and writers, who extended, enriched and amended it. Elements like the Round Table or the Quest for the Holy Grail could not be found in the original version. Even the names and biographical data of the Arthurian Knights were added later.

I want to analyse why especially one of these additions namely the Round Table was made. Did the author have different sources? Was it just added to make the story a more romantic one? Or were there serious reasons that made the author add this element?