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end of knight to cyborg course
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Alfred Tennyson • Published his Arthurian poem "The Lady of Shalott" in 1832. Tennyson's Arthurian work reached its peak of popularity with Idylls of the King, however, which reworked the entire narrative of Arthur's life for the Victorian era. It was first published in 1859 and sold 10,000 copies within the first week.
In Victorian America • The revived Arthurian romance also proved influential in the United States, with such books as Sidney Lanier's The Boy's King Arthur (1880) reaching wide audiences and providing inspiration for Mark Twain's satire A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889).
King Arthur illustration by Charles Ernest Butler (1903) • Tennyson had reworked the romance tales of Arthur to suit and comment upon the issues of his day, and the same is often the case with the many modern treatments that followed.
The Guns of August • The Guns of August: The Outbreak of World War I by Barbara W. Tuchman (1962)
Barbara Tuchman placed the responsibility for the Great War on • “foolish monarchs, diplomats, and generals who blundered into a war nobody wanted, an Armageddon which evolved with the same grim irreversibility as a Greek tragedy.” • Three of the key players were grandchildren of the late Queen Victoria of England; Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George V of England, and Czar Nicolas II of Russia. • Over the years and through secret alliances Germany and Austria-Hungary had allied against the Central Powers of France, Russia, and reluctantly Great Britain.
Alliance system & Inevitability of war • June 28, 1914 Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary destined to succeed his Uncle Franz Josef on the throne as inherit the title of Holy Roman Emperor was assassinated • July 5, 1914 Germany issues Austria-Hungary “blank check” • pledging military assistance if Austria-Hungary goes to war against Russia • July 23, 1914 Austria issues Serbia an ultimatum • The Russian Tsar supports his fellow Slavic People in Serbia – France & Britain back Russia
The final death knell of Feudalism • August 1914 transformed the world. Up until that point, the old order (monarchs and aristocracy) held strong in Europe • In 1900 the majority of the world was still ruled by 30 monarchies with a small number, like Britain, operating with elements of democracy
Global Population in 1900 – 1.7 billion • 1.4 billion people were ruled over by a monarch • The United Kingdom & British Empire Canada – Queen Victoria, Empress of India • Austro-Hungary - Emperor Franz Joseph I • Chinese Empire - Guangxu Emperor • Russian Empire - Emperor Nicholas II • Ottoman Empire - Sultan Abdul Hamid II • German Empire - Emperor Wilhelm II • Japan - Emperor Mutsuhito
The number of people living in developing democracies was only 12.6 % of the total world population in 1900
By the end of WWI many of the great kingdoms had fallen • German Kaiser Wilhelm II, left, and British King George V were first cousins and grandsons of the late Queen Victoria as was Czar Nicolas II of Russia. None of the trio escaped unscathed from the war. Bolshevists killed Nicolas and his family in 1918, Wilhelm fled to Holland where his health deteriorated. King George V survived but aged under the weight of responsibility during the war. His dark beard and hair turned white almost over night after a visit to the Western Front.
Beginning of War 1914 – 1915 • Many Europeans were excited about war • “Defend yourself against the aggressors” • Domestic differences were put aside • Parties and celebrations were held at the start.
Most expected War would be over in a few weeks • Ignored the length and brutality of the American Civil War (prototype to World War I)
1914 – 1915 Illusions and Stalemate • Belief that Modern industrial war could not be conducted for more than a few months • Everyone expected their soldiers would be “Home by Christmas”
Medieval Images used to Mask the horrors of machine warfare • The massive changes in technology between 1914 and the Middle Ages served not to alter the face of war in the minds of soldiers, but instead “reduced the range of effective vision on the battlefield,” providing a familiar, albeit far removed and fictionalized idea of conflict. • The influence of medieval-themed posters had its roots in the European cultural memory of chivalry, masculinity and knighthood during the Middle Ages.
Not limited to the Allies Used by Germany too
“Fatal attraction of war” • Exhilarating release from everyday life • A glorious adventure • War would rid the nations of selfishness • Spark a national re-birth based on heroism
Life in the Trenches • Elaborate systems of defense • barbed wire • Concrete machine gun nests • Mortar batteries • Troops lived in holes underground
“Death is everywhere” • Mustard gas • Carried by the wind • Burned out soldier’s lungs • Deadly in the trenches where it would sit at the bottom
Life in the Trenches • Trench warfare baffled military leaders – they kept thousands of cavalry troops ready for a mobile battle that never came • Attempt a breakthrough • Then return to a war of movement • Millions of young men sacrificed attempting the breakthrough
Battle of Verdun • Germany wanted to inflict heavy losses and capture Verdun • 10 months • 700,000 men killed • Extremely costly and deadly. Almost 1 million injured.
The changes of war New weapons • Poison gas (mustard gas) • Hand grenades • Flame throwers • Tanks • Airplanes • Subs
Men in Balloons • Zeppelins conducted the first ever aerial bombardment of civilians dropping bombs on Norfolk towns in January 1915. • A further 50 Zeppelin Raids took place. • From 1917 the Zeppelins were accompanied by Gotha G Bombers. • The raids diverted enemy resources and hampered wartime production.
The changes of war • Airplanes • Dog fights in the air • Romanticized the battlefields • Pilots fired pistols and threw hand grenades • Pilots would wave to each other.
The new menace • Airplane’s first military use was by Italy in 1911 • Combatants had few planes at the start of WW1 • France began with 140 but produced 68,000 with a 77% loss rate.
The Flying Aces – Knights of the Air • The successes of airmen were used for propaganda purposes. • The French were the first to award the distinction of ‘Ace’ (5 kills). • Manfred von Richthofen achieved the most kills with 80. • Rene Fonck was the highest score to survive the war with 75 kills. • Robert Little was the top Australian Ace with 47 kills. • They were known as ‘Knights of the Air’
The Home Front • Censorship • Not told about high death toll • battlefields romanticized the “soldiers have died a beautiful death, in noble battle, we shall rediscover poetry…epic and chivalrous”
Brutal firepower • The scale of the fighting during World War One as well as the kinds of injuries sustained meant that doctors and scientists had to develop new ways of treating patients.
More killed by disease • World War One was the first conflict where the number of deaths from wounds outstripped those from disease. Shrapnel and machine gun fire destroyed men’s flesh and left behind some of the worst injuries ever seen. New weapons caused complex wounds that needed new surgical techniques, in areas such as orthopaedics and plastic surgery.
Lost limbs • The “Thomas splint” reduced the mortality rate of wounded soldiers significantly, but injuries from new weapons still resulted in many men returning with physical disabilities. • Around 41,000 British servicemen lost at least one limb after being wounded in combat.Several hospitals opened with the sole purpose of helping men with amputations
Prosthetic devices • had long been in use before World War I. Benjamin Franklin Palmer, for instance, patented the first artificial leg in the United States in 1847, although even earlier technologies existed.
After the War - Social Impact • Men lost limbs and were mutilated • Birthrate fell markedly • Injured unable to work • Ethnic hostility • Influenza epidemic (killed around 50 million) • Dropped the U.S. life expectancy by 12 years (in 1 year) • Effected young adults (usually great immune system) • Poverty and massive rebuilding needed throughout Europe
In the latter half of the 20th century • the romance tradition of Arthur continued, through novels such as T. H. White's The Once and Future King (1958), Thomas Berger's tragicomic Arthur Rex and Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon (1982) in addition to comic strips such as Prince Valiant (from 1937 onward). • Bradley's tale takes a feminist approach to Arthur and his legend. Other American authors have reworked the story of Arthur to be more consistent with values such as equality and democracy.[
The romance of Arthur was popular in film and theatre as well • T. H. White's novel was adapted into the Lerner and Loewe stage musical Camelot (1960) and Walt Disney's animated film The Sword in the Stone (1963); Camelot, with its focus on the love of Lancelot and Guinevere and the betrayal of Arthur, was itself made into a film of the same name in 1967. Other films followed. Robert Bresson's Lancelot du Lac (1974), Éric Rohmer's Perceval le Gallois (1978) and John Boorman's Excalibur (1981); as well as the Arthurian spoof Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975).
JFK and Camelot • in the last half of the 20th century the idea of Camelot was powerful, and, after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, the name was used as a term to describe the years of his presidency.
In 1977 author Michael Uslan stated the following about the nature of comic books. • "From the 1930s through today comic books have expressed the trends, conventions, and concerns of American life. Comics have been a showcase for national views, slang, morals, customs, traditions, racial attitudes, fads, heroes of the day, and everything else that make up our lifestyles."
New kinds of heroes - Comic books as we know them today arrived in the late 1930s. • In June 1938 Action Comic Number 1 premiered and released and exposed Superman to the world, the character who encapsulated all that was good about America and humanity. And he became a star as the result of this issue. Other characters soon followed, including the Human Torch, Batman, the Sub-Mariner, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, The Shield, and of course Captain America.
Superman became popular for many reasons. • Like many Americans, Superman was an immigrant, albeit from an alien world. You could argue that Superman was the ultimate immigrant being away from his parents and his family. Secondly, Superman espoused the virtues of hard work, justice, and truth; a modern-day code of chivalry for the world of the 1930s, which was experiencing the Great Depression.
The prophesy that King Arthur will return has come true again and again. • Today he coincides with comic book heroes. This legendary icon of Western civilization lives again in the popular culture novels of contemporary and futuristic literature. • While the king’s personality has changed little since Malory, the monarch is now often found as a superhero in new world settings: he has become a Celtic space traveler among the stars, a modern politician fighting corruption, a WWII fighter pilot, a battler of aliens, and even returns as a teenage boy.
In the 1980s comic Camelot 3000, Arthur has a limited understanding of what constitutes evil in the modern world • despite his worthy character as a role model, his grasp of action required to overcome injustice constitutes a major shortcoming.
Wherever he goes, the comic book King Arthur • turning the king into an Americanized romantic superhero who overcomes his opponents but mostly fails to meet the reality of modern socio-economic challenges. • encounters a variety of evil opponents from his medieval past as well as futuristic aliens and monsters. The authors and publishers of Arthurian popular culture have commodified the Arthurian legend,
New knights & heroes for modern times Heroic warriors in an age of Cyborgs
Alongside comic books in the 1940s • As the hero is being examined across time & cultural boundaries, new forms of language are being developed for describing technological systems
