#oh my god this is so long oaisjdfosadfsajfsafdasifsa

[pendraegon]

hi ellian, I recently started trying to get into arthurian legend a bit and like, i'm working my way through some of chretien de troyes but sometimes I just want something a bit more modern and easy (I've read cliges and erec and enide.. oh my GOD erec is a dick), and if you feel like getting into it at all, why do you hate t.h. white / the once and future king ? whenever I look for recommendations its the first anyone recommends ! i'm so unsure whether to read it ?

hi!!! okay okay okay i legit got SO excited reading this because arthuriana ask<33 but also holy shit dude WHAT?? YOU READ..CLIGES AND EREC AND ENIDE FIRST?????????? cliges and erec and enide like oaisklfdjosadjfas they suck so much oh my god (anyways yeah welcome to the “we all hate erec” club on tumblr dot com, i think almost everyone who has read that text hates him with a passion) but holy shit if i started out with cliges and erec and enide i would never ever read arthuriana again. for chretien de troyes the only two things that are worth reading are yvain: knight of the lion and lancelot: knight of the cart. lancelot is significantly harder/more difficult than say yvain but also because de troyes fucking HATED lancelot and you can TELL through the text.

oh man..toafk...okay christ so we actually got into...a little bit of discourse, or as much discourse as you can GET in the arthuriana circles on tumblr, over this. i am hesitant TO call it discourse because i don’t believe it is at all but rather that me and a few friends were informing people just of...well..... it was a matter of a fact of the arthurian circle here on tumblr skews VERY white and toafk has a lot of racist/homophobic/misogynistic/ableist content in it that is either actively or unconsciously skimmed over and instead is just blatantly praised without ever getting into the nuance of discussing the fact that toafk by all means is NOT the end-all-be-all arthurian text. (personally it REALLY grinds my gears when people use toafk to cite their sources but that’s another matter aoisdjfoas)

th white is...well, th white himself and his works are incredibly racist in that there are SO many racial slurs used to the point that i remember being distinctly uncomfortable reading it, th white’s portrayal of palamedes (a muslim knight who is often portrayed as a “conversion fantasy”) is deeply upsetting, and the fact that th white uses a specific dialect FOR certain characters as well that gets even more skin crawling due to it. i cannot find the post for it but if i do i’ll update it but there are these “notes” of th white’s for toafk in which he says that lancelot (who toafk portrays as a gay man but lancelot, despite being one of the greatest and handsomest knights in legends, is portrayed as grotesque and ugly....the classical western thought of beauty = good, but also equating homosexuality to ugliness is. uh...not great) preys on younger men/squires (such as gareth, gawain’s brother). there is a lot of linking between homosexuality and pedophilia in toafk and the fact that toafk is LAUDED for this portrayal of lancelot makes me genuinely ill. similarly, mordred is shown to be the only disabled character but he’s villanized to the point of it being sickening. his portrayal of women especially in regards to guinevere is strife with misogyny (there’s this one specific part about how gaudy guinevere looks now that she’s old and applying makeup) and in regards to elaine of corbenic it’s uh. somehow he made elaine of corbenic WORSE than she is already.

that being said, toafk was published in 1958 and by all means i firmly believe that [1] no books SHOULD be banned ever but [2] that being said you MUST be aware of the author’s biases that seep into the text because of COURSE that happens. and [3] as long as you are AWARE of said biases (and th white has many and once you’re AWARE as well of th white’s family’s history in india you can’t unsee it in his work) and you KNOW what it is you’re imbibing, then by all means, use critical thinking skills -- there is still something to be taken from BY toafk and by what it is th white wrote but do not praise it as “the best” arthurian modern novel when it falls flat on so many levels. i feel similarly about mists of avalon which is another highly praised modern arthurian book especially in its portrayal of female characters, but lots of people simply do not want to talk about or KNOW that the author herself is a rapist and a pedophile. i’ve read both of these books and like, i wouldn’t recommend them at all because personally i also think that the writing sucks, but IF you read either of these works, it’s good to be aware exactly what it is you’re getting into. especially since arthurian circles, which again are predominantly white, often tend to keep these things very hush-hush or get VERY antsy if you speak out badly about toafk/mists of avalon.

arthuriana HAS and IS used as a dogwhistle online and in alt-right spaces. arthuriana HAS been used historically to promote islamophobic and antisemitic sentiment. arthuriana HAS been used to villainize people who don’t fit a particular “mold” of “normality”. arthuriana HAS been propaganda itself -- but that doesn’t make arthuriana bad or evil. arthuriana is a LIVING tradition, an evolving body of work -- for me, as someone who adores the medieval lit side of arthuriana, it’s extremely troubling to see just how the works from the 1900s and onwards has, instead of uplifting the genre as a whole to become more inclusive, has only become more entrenched in racist and misogynistic and homophobic thought. arthuriana deserves better, we deserve better, and arthuriana CAN be better.

here is a link to a discussion post that goes deeper into it!