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The Arthurian Legend on the Small Screen Starz’ Camelot and BBC’S Merlin

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The Arthurian Legend on the Small Screen Starz’ Camelot and BBC’S Merlin CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives The Arthurian Legend on the small screen Starz’ Camelot and BBC’s Merlin Ingrid Nygård A thesis presented to The Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages at The University of Oslo in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Master of Arts Degree 15th November 2013 Like King Arthur, I have been on a hero’s journey. I ventured forth into the unknown world of academia to prove my worth, and have returned, tired but triumphant, with the boon of new wisdom. Campbell knew that every hero needs a wise old mentor to help them on their way, and I have been fortunate enough to have just such a man with me on my journey. I want to thank Einar Bjorvand for his good advice, his kind critique, his endless patience with my recurring grammatical errors, and the gift of several useful books. I could not have finished this thesis without him. Ingrid Nygård 2 0.0 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 04 1.0 Chapter 1 ........................................................................................................................................ 08 1.1 A brief history of the Arthurian legend ............................................................................. 08 1.2 BBC’s Merlin .................................................................................................................... 13 1.2.1 The boy wizard: Merlin in History and Merlin................................................. 13 1.2.2 The love triangle in Merlin: Lancelot and Guinevere ....................................... 18 1.2.3 Equals and opposites: Morgana, Merlin, Arthur and Guinevere ...................... 25 1.3 Starz’ Camelot .................................................................................................................. 37 1.3.1 Idealism versus flawed humanity: Morgan, Arthur and the love triangle ........ 37 1.3.2 Feminism in Camelot ....................................................................................... 42 1.4 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 46 2.0 Chapter 2 ........................................................................................................................................ 48 2.1 An introduction to Joseph Campbell’s monomyth............................................................ 48 2.1.1 Campbell and Le Morte D’Arthur .................................................................... 50 2.2 Campbell and Camelot ...................................................................................................... 52 2.3 Campbell and Merlin ........................................................................................................ 58 2.4 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 65 3.0 Chapter 3 ........................................................................................................................................ 66 3.1 An introduction to Andrew B. R. Elliott ........................................................................... 66 3.2 Those who fight ................................................................................................................ 71 3.2.1 Iconic recreation of knighthood ...................................................................... 73 3.2.1.1 Taming aggression ......................................................................... 74 3.2.1.2 Earning Knighthood ...................................................................... 78 3.2.1.3 Knighthood as an institution .......................................................... 80 3.2.2 Paradigmatic representation of knighthood .................................................... 82 3.3 Those who rule ................................................................................................................. 84 3.3.1 Iconic recreation of kingship .......................................................................... 84 3.3.1.1 Wisdom.......................................................................................... 84 3.3.1.2 King as head of feudal order .......................................................... 88 3.3.2 Paradigmatic construction of kingship ........................................................... 91 3.3.2.1 The King as knight ........................................................................ 91 3.3.2.2 The sub-king .................................................................................. 93 3.4 Constructing medieval worlds ......................................................................................... 96 3.4.1 Internal guides ................................................................................................ 97 3.4.2 Physical guides ............................................................................................... 102 3.5 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 103 4.0 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 106 5.0 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................... 109 3 0.0 Introduction The story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table has endured for a thousand years. It has been told and retold countless times, in novel form, as poetry, on stage, and on screen. Its lasting appeal can be attributed both to its timeless fairy tale motifs, and to its ability to reshape itself to the tastes and needs of its evolving audience. When Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote Idylls of the King in the mid-nineteenth century, he was addressing Victorian society’s fears about the newly revealed nature of man. T. H. White’s five-novel series The Once and Future King is a treatise on the politics of war, very much relevant in the mid-twentieth century, and a few decades later, Marion Zimmer Bradley made feminism a theme of her novel, The Mists of Avalon, and yet all three of these tell essentially the same story. These are all literary examples, however, and today, while Arthurian novels are certainly still being written, they seem to be largely relegated to the Science-fiction & Fantasy shelf of your local bookshop, with its accompanying narrow market. Instead, it has fallen to Hollywood to keep King Arthur in the minds of the masses, and the results are many and varied. It is not the triumphs and failures of the big screen, though, but those of its little brother that this thesis is interested in, because in recent years there have been no less than two serious takes on the legend made for TV, BBC’s Merlin (2008) and Starz’ Camelot (2011). Merlin began as a light-hearted family affair, but grew predictably darker over the course of five seasons, culminating in the battle of Camlann, and the death of King Arthur. The series was created by Shine, an independent producer, for the BBC, who wanted a family show in the vein of Doctor Who and Robin Hood (2006). It was to be a “three generation” TV show, meaning it could be watched by children, parents and grandparents, and naturally that meant it had to be family friendly (Deans: “BBC seeks magic touch”). Four men are credited as the creators of Merlin: Julian Murphy and Johnny Capps, who also were executive producers, and Jake Michie and Julian Jones, who wrote more than half of the show’s episodes between them. Murphy and Capps went on to create Atlantis (2013), a show similar in tone to Merlin, but Merlin is their biggest success so far. And a success it may rightly be called. From its premiere in September 2008 until it ended in December 2012, the show aired on Saturday evenings on BBC1, the flagship channel of the BBC. The prime time slot and the widely broadcasted channel probably contributed to its success, but it did have to fight for its audience, seeing that it aired at the same time as The 4 X Factor on rival channel ITV (Millar: “X Factor, Merlin”). So Merlin’s average of 5 to 7 million viewers every night was impressive (Golder: “Merlin series three”). The show also became very popular outside Great Britain. It was sold to 183 territories worldwide, “making it one of the most successful exports in TV history” (Grant: “Hit or Myth”). Not everyone was positive in the beginning, though. Tom Shales of The Washington Post was not impressed by the premiere of “The Dragon’s Call” on NBC: “It takes the stuff of legend and imagination and makes it dry and commonplace. You look forward not to the next exciting chapter, but for the whole enterprise to go ‘poof’ and disappear” (Shales: “Tom Shales’ TV Preview”). The reviewers of The Guardian were also initially unimpressed, citing the “awful dialogue” and the lack of innovation in the show (Martin: “It make take a magician”). However, by season three they had warmed to the series, which seemed to be the general trend (Heritage: “Merlin has been cancelled”). SFX Magazine was one of the few that were positive from the beginning, and they remained enamoured of the show until the very end (Bradley: “Merlin 5.13”). Camelot, in contrast, presented itself from the beginning as an
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