How the Mighty Have Fallen: an Examination of the Luciferian Arc in Arthurian Legend

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2017-05

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Florida Southern College

Abstract

Western society has long obsessed over and even fetishized Arthurian legend. Countless literary retellings and film adaptations of every genre clutter search engines and library shelves alike. Scholars are not exempt from the masses’ love of all things Arthurian. A search of “King Arthur” pulls up 99,983 articles on JSTOR, and Arthurian scholarship even has an entire scholarly journal, Arthuriana, devoted to the once and future king of Britain. So, why write another scholarly thesis on a topic that has been discussed to and past the point of boredom? While a plethora of texts exist on Arthur, and a lesser but still impressive number on his most famous knight, Lancelot, the religious connections between Christianity and Arthuriana only discuss the similarities between Arthur and Christ. Lucifer is conspicuously absent from the conversation. Considering the parallels between the stories of Lancelot – and by extension Lanval – and Lucifer, leaving the topic unaddressed would be an act of literary negligence.

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Honors Thesis Spring 2017

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