Ithaca College

Michael Twomey (Dana Professor of Humanities and Arts, English Department, retired) presented a paper at the 25th Congress of the International Arthurian Society in Würzburg, Germany, on July 27th.  

Michael's paper was part of a session on retractions in medieval Arthurian literature and scholarship; along with the other papers from the session, it will be published in a special issue of Arthuriana (journal of the International Arthurian Society, North American Branch) in 2018.

Titled "Palimpsest, Confession, Palinode, Retraction: A Taxonomy of Arthurian Revision," Michael's paper argued for the centrality of various forms of narrative and characterological revision in medieval and modern Arthurian literature.  Writers of Arthurian narratives have revised each other from the beginning, which is why there are so many versions of even the canonical Arthurian events, places, and characters.  Within Arthurian romances in particular, characters undergo moral and spiritual revision in the pursuit of adventure, and narrators revise their perspectives on their stories in the course of relating them.

Citing an example from his own published scholarship, Michael also suggested that on the basis of the importance of revision in Arthurian literature, scholars of the legend of King Arthur are unusually open to changing their minds, retracting their earlier published work.

Photo:  "The Retractionists" at the Residenz, Würzburg; from left:  Michael Twomey, Karen Cherewatuk (St. Olaf College), Edward Donald Kennedy (U. of N. Carolina, Chapel Hill, retired), Elizabeth Archibald (U. of Durham, UK), and Meg Roland (Marylhurst U.).