i know you probably get this question a lot so feel free to ignore lol but do you have any recs for anyone just getting into arthurian lit? theres so much its kinda crazy
yes there is so much - but have fun with it and embrace how silly and crazy it is and you will be fine :)
some easier stand alone medieval arthurian texts that are pretty straightforward and don't pull in an additional like 15 storylines that never come up again confusing one to no end (cough cough malory) would be
Lanval by Marie France (super short!)
sad overlooked knight finally gets beautiful (magical?) girlfriend. but unfortunately not everyone is happy about this. ends up getting in a legal battle with the queen.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (anonymous)
magical horrifying green monstrous knight rolls up to arthur's court and says one of the knights here can deal me any blow, as long as i can repay the exact same blow. arthur's nephew, sir gawain, goes count me in and cuts the guy's head right off. unfortunately the green guy survives this and now gawain has a problem
Knight of the Cart by ChrƩtien de Troyes
the queen is kidnapped. a nameless knight goes to retrieve her and faces all sorts of mysterious and strange trials such as bed that lights on fire and bridge made out of sword. turns out this nameless knight, as you will find out midway through the poem, is not just any ordinary knight but quite a well known one. and he is unfortunately very in love with the queen
Tristan by Gottfried von Strassburg
born out of a tragic love story between his own parents, young sir tristan's life is not exactly looking great either, seeing as he ends up getting poisoned by an enemy he kills and the only one with the cure is his enemy's sister. yikes. who has a super hot daughter. yikes. a daughter who ends up, by complicated circumstances, marrying tristan's uncle. yikes. and who also ends up accidentally sharing a love potion with tristan on the way to her wedding. YIKES.
I also happen to think all of these texts are pretty fun and not like obscure or hard to understand. good starting points! if you want to know more about like arthurian lit generally:
the english speaking arthurian world is largely informed by Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory (15th century) which has kind of the grand arthurian arcs that we often associate with legend of king arthur now - sword in the stone, holy grail, lancelot/guinevere, fall of arthur's kingdom, etc. but the narrative tbh i find pretty hard to read so if you're like omg what's going on that's just what it's like. it's totally fine to skip around that text. it doesn't necessarily need to be read in order. Gareth's story in le morte is a fun one and again pretty straightforward and can be read without the context of the rest of le morte. also john steinbeck adapted a few chapters of malory's work which i really loved and it might be a good intro if you're having trouble getting into the original.
the arthurian vulgate cycle is kind of the main source that Malory draws from - it's an incredibly long and complicated french work (13th century) that combines a lot of arthurian works before it. full disclosure it's like 1000 or more pages. but it's fun to hop around because there is some crazy stuff in there (including guinevere's imposter sister who kicks her off the throne, lancelot getting trapped in a magical dance, sir gawain finding out merlin is magically trapped and just kind of abandoning him because what is gawain going to do about it, etc). if you want to browse the first two volumes it's here on archive.org. you probably don't want to spend 45 dollars on a summary text of the vulgate cycle that includes select passages to give you an idea of what's all in it without having to read 1000 pages, but if for any reason you did, amazon sells this book that i think is very clutch
vulgate and le morte i explained for context, but give those texts at the beginning of my post a shot as intro texts and see how you like them! i know @queer-ragnelle also has like a ton of med lit/arthurian lit resources on her blog and more links than i have so her stuff is for sure worth checking out if you want more options.
the thing about arthurian lit is that it gets retold over and over and over again in many ways at many times by many people and it's kind of a never ending fascinating web of stories and characters who are in some ways related but in many texts stand alone. embrace the silliness and whimsy and confusion of it and hop around as needed. hope this helps and im happy to answer any other questions! dm or comment or ask or whatever. <3
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