CAMELOT - THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND IN A TV SERIES

In this series , CAMELOT (2011),  they investigate how the legend may have come to be. They imagine  young Arthur, just in his teens,  torn away from his comfortable environment and from his foster parents by Merlin. He is suddenly thrown into the middle of a violent world in which he has to survive and to become a man and a king.

None of the characters is the mythical figure of the tradition. They are complex, conflicting human beings, totally different from their iconic counterparts. 

THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND IN DANTE: PAOLO AND FRANCESCA

Dante’s use of the Arthurian legend

By the late 13^th century the Arthurian legend and its stories were so well-known throughout Europe that Dante could use them for one of the most famous episodes of his Divina Commedia: that of the tragic love and death of Paolo and Francesca (Inferno, Canto V). Dante placed the two lovers from Rimini in the ring (girone) of the lustful (lussuriosi). Virgil, who is Dante’s guide through Hell and Purgatory, first points out to Dante some of the famous figures in the ground of the lustful: some of them come from classical history and literature  - Helen of Troy, Dido, Cleopatra; others – such as Tristan – come straight from the Arthurian legend.

Tristan, one of the bravest knights of the Round Table, is there because of his adulterous love for Isolde, wife to King Mark of Cornwall – who was Tristan’s uncle and who finally killed him.