justira ([personal profile] justira) wrote 2010-11-02 02:19 am (UTC)

ach, it was slipshod of me not to acknowledge the origins! Which is— really dumb, because I MEANT to talk about how much I liked that aspect of it and how Welsh was the first language I tried to learn because of it and— and then I probably left the draft and came back (as I wrote this in parts over the course of the day) and totally forgot to put that part in =(

I'm sorry; that was just... not very awesome.

Though, I do think my overall point still stands — Arthur's origins are Welsh, but his legend has grown into one of the iconic stories of today's most predominant and privileged culture (white, English-speaking Europeans). There's a story of appropriation there, too — which... kind of circles back around to my point, as I can think of no other narratives that have been so thoroughly absorbed into the zeitgeist like this (setting aside the Abrahamic narratives for a moment), and particularly not any narratives that originate outside Europe. And I'd like to know what these stories are for other cultures. I want to know if other cultures have narratives that have grown like this.

(Though the narratives of the Abrahamic faith would make an interesting study in this sort of thing — I just frankly do not feel informed enough on that subject to actually start a discussion. I'm willing to listen to anyone who does know, though!)

Anyway. It was, particularly in context, not good of me to omit this, for which I apologize. I hope it can still serve to foster discussion about this kind of story though, particularly with this added context.

Post a comment in response:

This account has disabled anonymous posting.
If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting