“Myths and legends of King Arthur”, a collection published by “Le Monde”

At the edge of the sword, at the frenzied gallop of a horse, to the sweet notes of a monastic chant, the colors of a world and the spirit of a time were invented: the Middle Ages. Like a distant memory of which childhood was the sanctuary, the legend of King Arthur runs through the centuries, reviving a medieval history which is neither obscure nor obsolete, but carries timeless values.

Here, bravery and humility, honor and empathy, respect and magic go hand in hand for a single end, both individual and common. It is called the quest for the Grail, the search for ideals, utopias or absolutes. It is, of all possible futures, the dream most inclined to harmonize opposites, to police battles, to appease hatreds and above all to conquer that which grows man and beautifies the world he builds for himself.

Here are the Arthurian legends which, from the forest of Brocéliande to the lands of the Crusades, speak of the unreal and the marvelous, of forces and passions, of tricks or betrayals, of loyal friendships, of impossible loves. Published in the collection of Mondethese stories, constantly repeated over the centuries, despite their multiple variants, keep intact their power of escape and that of questioning history and the imagination while blurring their boundaries.

Such is the strength of the myth which unites Merlin the Enchanter to King Arthur equipped with his inseparable Excalibur, the reckless Lancelot to Queen Guinevere, the Lady of the Lake to the sorceress Morgana, who, in the shadow of battles, plots and rivalries , implement their disastrous or fabulous projects.

The lady's consent

Because, as the Franco-Italian medievalist Emanuele Arioli reminds us: “The appetite for legend expresses our need to re-enchant the world. » It is indeed the dream of every child, but it is also that of those whose uncertain times impose, in the Middle Ages, in the 19th^e century as today, to shape its future.

Because, like the Arthurian legends, which since the 12th^e century continue to resurface in all spaces of literary and visual creation, from novels to cinema, from television series to comics, from video games to role-playing games, history is constantly rewritten, revealing the innumerable facets of a humanity that changes little.

As such, one of Emanuele Arioli's discoveries – a 15th century manuscript^e century, a true encyclopedia of the Arthurian world – includes the twenty articles that knights must honor to belong to the order of the Round Table. The last of them reminds us that in matters of seduction the consent of the lady is essential.

At the time of courtly love, the Arthurian universe already contained values ​​of respect and humanism that some of our contemporaries seem to have forgotten. This is how these legends go, where reality and dreams weave the fabric of a story with abundant echoes of the past, present and future. King Arthur is the discreet hero, craftsman of the myth, in an uchronistic power which transcends the world and man so that they reinvent themselves, perhaps bringing the imagination closer to the truth.