BRITISH IDENTITY AND THE GERMAN OTHER A Dissertation ...

The compression of historical time through national mythmaking in Britain, which
complemented the “domestication” of geographical space as one of the constituents of
imperialism, succeeded most convincingly through anglicized versions of the King Arthur legend
and the socially rehabilitated image of the outlaw hero, Robin Hood. Stephanie L. Barczewski
has explained how the resuscitation of these two medieval warrior-heroes furthered cultural
nationalism in their appeal to diverse, ideologically opposed groups. 2 The King Arthur legend
lent itself to an imperialistic, muscular Christianity and missionary zeal as well as an aristocratic,
conservative view of social reform, such as that championed by the Christian Socialists, who
from the 1850s stressed community and the neo-feudal idea of mutual obligations and loyalties
between classes in opposition to social equality and democratization through parliamentary
reform. Arthurian heroes also became models for crusading, “knights-errant” of the realm who
set out to right social injustices both at home and abroad. The chivalric metaphor not only
invested imperial service with a sense of moral duty, as in the idea of rescuing backward peoples
from slavery, superstition and oppression, but the Arthurian motif of Sir Perceval and Sir
Galahad in quest of the Holy Grail also reinforced Christian themes and added sexual purity to
2 Myth and National Identity in Nineteenth-Century Britain: The Legends of King Arthur
and Robin Hood (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 22, 46, 111, 155-58.
Barczewski traces the work of scholars in the divestiture of the Arthurian legend of its Celtic and
French origins in favor of Anglo-Saxon roots, from Malory’s Morte d’Artur to Tennyson’s Idylls
of the King (1851). The recasting of Robin Hood from “Lord of Misrule” to gentleman bandit
began with Shakespeare’s As You Like It and progressed through the nineteenth century.
Barczewski also points out a continuity between the nineteenth-century “retreat towards English
culture,” based on pride in British linguistic accomplishments, and the nationalist revivals in
Europe generated by Herder’s emphasis on the importance of tradition, myth and legend in the
development of national character (pp. 84-86, 97, 103).
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