Camelot and Computers
By: Jennifer Freely
The Internet is one of the most unbelievable inventions of our time. It is a source of entertainment and a conduit for people all over the world to meet and share ideas. This free exchange of knowledge is what makes this technological age so fascinating, and are interest in the past is very evident on the Internet today. Type in the phrases The Canterbury Tales, King Arthur or Camelot on any search engine and over 20,000 sites will appear. Four sites of interest were found to have an extensive collection of information on these respective subjects.
There is a Geoffrey Chaucer Homepage at http://icg.harvard.edu/~chaucer designed by Larry Benson and graduate students at Harvard University about the author�s work and life. This site contains a brief timeline and biography and also contains links to authors who have written essays about Chaucer�s life and times. Another section of the website is devoted to the culture and customs of Chaucer�s England, discussing the ideas of courtly love, pilgrimages, and jousting tournaments as just few of the topics covered. There is also a page that centers on the language and linguistics of Chaucer�s writings as well as making the language much easier to understand. This page is a very useful one in that it is easy to use. The web design is very clear about the topics that the other pages cover. The Geoffrey Chaucer Homepage also gives a menu so that locating the desired topic is a breeze.
The Mists of Avalon website at http://alt.tnt.tv/movies/tntoriginals/mists is a fun site that the TNT network created about the miniseries they aired last summer that is based on Marion Zimmer Bradley�s book, published in 1984. The miniseries stars Anjelica Huston, Julianna Margulies, and Joan Allen as three of the women from the Isle of Avalon. Huston portrays Viviane, the Lady of the Lake and high priestess of Avalon; Margulies plays King Arthur�s half- sister, Morgaine; and Allen takes on the role of the evil Morgause, sister to Viviane. The site is clear and to the point. It contains a brief history of the legend and cast biographies of the actors who performed in the movie. Also, there a section about the making of the film, and a personal favorite point of interest is in the downloads and games. Entitled �Climbing the Family Tree,� it acquaints a person with the cast of characters and their relation to one another. This site has a lot of features and gives an overview of the legend and the people involved in it.
The Mystic Realm of King Arthur, at http://www.public.iastate.edu/~camelot/arthur.html, lists several sites with the mission of discussing the existence of King Arthur and his kingdom. It contains the ARTHURNET: An Arthurian Internet Discussion Group, which is a discussion page about King Arthur and the myths and legends surrounding him. There is also a link to the Oxford Arthurian Society page. It is an organization founded in 1982, which �exists to explore the figure of King Arthur in history, literature and legend.� The members discuss an assortment of topics and historical texts, looking for records of both the real and fictional King Arthur.
The Legends Page devoted to King Arthur at http://www.legends.dm.net/kingarthur is another excellent resource site. They include a source page that contains original Arthurian documents. The Camelot Project is another link that is run by the University of Rochester that contains an electronic database of Arthurian texts and images. There is also a site that is associated with both the University of Rochester and Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, that is a teaching aid in the study of the Middle Ages. This site contains a wide variety of sources that are very useful and enhance one�s general knowledge of the Arthurian legends.
All four of these websites are interesting and give a unique perspective on their respective topics. They also provide an ample number of links to other sites for those interested in acquiring more information on the subject. The interesting graphics are a real plus and add to the overall look of the web design. It is enjoyable to explore these sites and at the same students gain a good amount of knowledge about the times of Camelot and King Arthur and Geoffrey Chaucer.
Work Cited
�The Geoffrey Chaucer Homepage.� 10 January 2002. Online. Internet.
http://icg.harvard.edu/~chaucer 17 March 2002.
�Legends � King Arthur- Source.� 26 November 2000. Online. Internet.
http://www.legends.dm.net/kingarthur 17 March 2002.
�The Mists of Avalon.� 2001. Online. Internet.
http://alt.tnt.tv/movies/tntoriginals/mists 17 March 2002.
�The Mystic Realm of King Arthur.� 17 March 2002. Online. Internet.
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~camelot/arthur.html 17 March 2002.
Image was also borrowed from the "The Mystic Realm of King Arthur."