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will give a lecture entitled He will be introduced by of Bologna University.
He was sired by an incubus and born of a virgin; he was a prophet, a shape-shifter, a king-maker and a mad man of the woods. In a literary career spanning 1500 years, , or originally Myrddin, put the sword in the stone, built Stonehenge, knew the truth behind the Holy Grail and discovered the Elixir of Life. "Beware Merlin for he knows all things by the devil's craft" say the poisoners in Malory's Morte D'Arthur; but he is also on the side of the good and is almost Christ-like in some of the versions of his tale, and his prophesies were pored over by the medieval Church.
Who was Merlinus Ambrosius, as he is sometimes known? Where does his legend spring from and how has it been appropriated and adapted over time?
is Distinguished Research Professor in English Literature at Cardiff University, Wales. Formerly he worked at Sydney University and the ANU and was Professor in English at Melbourne 1987-92.
He has written books on a range of topics in medieval cultural studies, notably Arthurian Literature and Society (1983), Geoffrey Chaucer (1986), Robin Hood: A Complete Study of the English Outlaw (1994), Robin Hood: The Forresters Manuscript (2001) and Robin Hood: a Mythic Biography (2003), which won the International Mythopoeic Society Award for Non-Fiction in 2004.
But he has also written widely on Welsh fiction in English, including A Hundred Years of Fiction: Writing Wales in English (2004), and on crime fiction, notably Form and Ideology in Crime Fiction (1980), Continent of Mystery: A Thematic History of Australian Crime Fiction (1997) and Crime Fiction 1800-2000 (2003). In 2002 he was given the Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award for services to Australian Crime fiction.
He is currently working on a book on the mythic biography of Merlin.
: Associazione Culturale Italo Britannica, Via Farini 35, 40124 Bologna, 051 221249, info@italobritannica.com.
: alle 17.30 il 15 Ottobre 2008
: Associazione Culturale Italo Britannica, Via Farini 35, 40124 Bologna |
Merlin across Europe: Transformations of Knowledge