Written in 1889, Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is considered by many scholars to be the most important of American Arthuriana. Twain stripped the Arthurian legend of much of its glory and grandeur, allowing his contemporaries to identify with his main character; Hank Morgan. However, in doing so, Twain also turned away from history somewhat. Most, if not all, of the social structure of King Arthur's court is based on Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, which is the first true retelling of the legend of King Arthur. Twain also mentions the quest for the Grail which is at the heart of Malory's work. But Twain also speaks of knights clad in iron and the British nation enslaved by a tyrannical absolute monarch. Furthermore, he attributes much of the people's suffering to the Catholic Church. Although the Arthurian court and the quest for the Grail are in line with Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, Twain deviated from the story when it came to armor, slavery, and Catholicism. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay It was not until the 15th century that the legend as we know it appeared in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. In Le Morte d'Arthur, Arthur is a fearless leader who has at his side a faithful advisor in the person of Merlin and extremely loyal and virtuous knights. However, towards the end of the 12th century, Chrétien de Troyes described a different Arthur in Perceval, The History of the Grail, as did Wolfram von Eschenbach at the beginning of the 13th century in an adaptation of Perceval's story: Parzival. The legend of the Grail is particularly a recurring theme in all of these works. The quest for the Grail is the search for a cup from which Jesus drank at the last supper. Only the most virtuous can find it, which is why Arthur sends his best knights on a quest. However, in the end, only Galahad is worthy enough to enter the room that houses the Grail and Lancelot must wait outside. In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, the knights also go in search of the Grail, but Hank Morgan does not see the virtue and importance of it, as this excerpt clearly shows: The boys all took a leaflet for the Holy Grail from time to time. It was a cruise lasting several years. They always set up a long absence to snoop around, in the most conscientious way, even though none of them had the slightest idea where the Holy Grail actually was, and "I don't think so that none of them really expected to find it, or would have known." what to do with it if he had crossed paths with it” (Twain 50). This is the complete opposite of how Malory describes the legend of the Grail. In Malory, the knights have an almost saintly quality and relentlessly seek the Holy Grail. The kind of thinking Hank Morgan makes in this excerpt would be simply unthinkable. Additionally, Hank wonders why the knights would leave in the first place: “Every year, expeditions would go out for the Holy Grail, and the next year, relief expeditions would go out to hunt them. There were worlds of reputation in there, but no money” (50). Clearly, Hank doesn't think reputation is worth fighting for, he would only consider joining the quest if there were financial benefits. Alan Lupack argues in his book King Arthur in America that this is what made the Arthurian legend so appealing to Twain's readership: "If purity of heart – rather than wealth to buyhorses or weapons, or the strength and skill to use these tools effectively – was the main requirement of chivalry, so anyone could be a knight” (Lupack xii). By mocking Arthuriana in this way, Twain allows his 19th-century American audience to identify with Hank Morgan. Among the many questionable aspects of Arthurian life described by Hank Morgan, knights in shining armor seem to be an important and recurring theme. He describes Sir Sagramor as his adversary in a joust: "Out of his tent rose the great Sir Sagramor, an imposing tower of iron, majestic and rigid, his enormous spear upright in its socket and grasped in his strong hand, the face of his big horse. and his chest sheathed in steel, his body clad in rich ornaments that trailed almost to the ground – oh, a most noble image. A great cry of welcome and admiration was raised (247). "While this passage paints a wonderful picture of an impressive knight, it would be more appropriate if the story of a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court took place in 15th or 16th century England. At that time, the armor was made of steel and very heavy, but it was still only used in tournaments because it greatly limited the knights on the battlefield. King Arthur's knights would have worn boiled leather armor, significantly lighter than that. steel but also much less effective Horses were also clad in boiled leather on the battlefield, but in tournaments they wore the knight's colors on their ornate rugs. The generic Old English term for armor is "gearwe." " (pronounced ye-ar-wee), but "gereaf" ("yuth-rea-af"), "gesceorp" ("yuth-skay-orp") and "gescred" ("yuth-skrud") are. also used for armor or harness This could suggest that there were several types of armor, each with its own purpose and therefore a slightly different term was used to describe it. None of these terms, however, suggests that the armor was made of steel, or more precisely iron, since the term for battleship is "esengreg" ("ee-sen-grag"). There are many words that begin with “ge,” meaning war, battle, or combat. This makes sense because knights had a very violent lifestyle, both on the battlefield and in jousts for their honor. This lifestyle is also evident in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, but unlike the book, 6th-century knights in England did not wear iron armor. Then there is the issue of slavery in A Connecticut Yankee in the Court of King Arthur. Hank Morgan is clearly against slavery and there are some interesting passages where he talks about it: "It is enough to shame a body of his race to think of this kind of scum who has always occupied his thrones without a shadow of law or reason. and the seventh-rate people who have always represented its aristocracies – a group of monarchs and nobles who, as a rule, would have achieved nothing but poverty and obscurity if left, like their superiors, to their own devices. efforts” (42). is "ashamed of his race", but it is unclear whether he is talking about race literally or symbolically. If he means it literally, it makes no sense because there were not a large number of slaves of any racial background other than Morgan's in 6th century England. There may have been a few Moorish slaves who accompanied their Roman masters, but they were very rare. Assuming Hank is talking about black slaves, which would make sense given his origin in post-Civil War America, his calling 6th-century Britons "seventh-rate people" is significant. In early 19th century Americacentury, a person with at least 1/8 African ancestry (i.e., a great-grandparent) was classified as black and therefore "repealed their rights as a citizen, prohibiting them from voting, owning property, to testify against whites in court, or to marry whites” (Barr 2). They were classified as separate from the rest of society and effectively considered substandard citizens. It could be argued that Hank considers all Brits to be second-class citizens (although he emphasizes this by calling them "seventh rate"), in the same way that African Americans were discriminated against where hence he comes. Hank also claims that rich people gain their prosperity by suppressing others, as did slave owners and especially plantation owners in America. When he is offered a title, he does not want it, on the contrary, he wants to distance himself from the aristocracy as much as he can. But he's willing to make an exception when push comes to shove: "That title, translated into modern parlance, would be THE BOSS." Elected by the nation. That suited me. Besides the fact that Hank has suddenly become an expert in Old English, he accepts the title because he was chosen "by the nation." Only this kind of title suits him, being an American who has just lived through the civil war. He wants to impose democracy on a people who are not at all ready for it. They don't understand the appeal, in fact, an old man would happily become Hanks' slave if it means he learns to read and write: "'Me?' I would give my heart's blood to know this art. Well, I will be your slave, your…” “No, you won’t, you won’t be anyone’s slave” (72). Hank truly regards King Arthur's subjects as slaves: “Most of King Arthur's British nation were slaves, pure and simple, and bore that name and wore an iron collar around their necks; and the others were actually slaves, but unnamed; they imagined themselves men and freemen, and called themselves that” (Twain 42). However, there are some problems with Hank's conclusion. First, there was no coherent people in England at the time who could be "King Arthur's Nation of Britain." Instead, many rival tribes inhabited the land we know today as England and enslaved each other after the battle. The North, a region that included Scotland and most of northern England, was home to the Picts, a brutal and savage tribe who remained isolated most of the time and were largely left alone by the Anglo-Saxons who were not interested in their slightest interest. only fertile land. Second and more importantly, slavery as an institution did not exist in 6th century England. Other tribes or foreigners who became prisoners of war were often enslaved by British tribes, but slaves were not bought or sold. The Old English word for slave is “beow” (pronounced “the-ow”). The Anglo-Saxons often called a slave “wealh” (“hwealg”), which meant “stranger, foreigner, slave; British, Welsh; shameless person.” These slaves had more rights than American cotton plantation slaves since they could earn some money and eventually even buy their own freedom. Such rights did not exist for black American slaves. In 6th-century England, there were also slaves called "wetheow" ("wee-tuh-the-ow"), which meant that people were enslaved by law. These criminals were enslaved as punishment for their crimes and often worked the land. The British had.