AustLit

'Stephen Knight is a well-known medievalist and a central figure in the currently trending study of ‘medievalism’—the creative appropriation of medieval themes, images and narratives in every sort of modern medium. His latest book, The Politics of Myth, surveys nine figures, both fictional and historic, whose stories have achieved a resonance that transcends such facts as we have, or think we have, about their lives. Some of his choices are obvious candidates for his analyses, others a bit more quirky. Some, like the Arthurian triad of Arthur, Merlin and Guinevere, and Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, arose almost from their very beginnings as narrative fictions. Others, such as Robin Hood and Joan of Arc, Knight observes as they transition from indistinct historical milieux into the timeless halls of myth. Still others such as Elizabeth I, Shakespeare and Ned Kelly are better known to historians than to traditional mythographers.' (Introduction)