Anderson, Graham

Dr. Graham Anderson is currently Professor of Classics at the University of Kent, where he also teaches Comparative Literary Studies. He studied Classics at Glasgow and Oxford, and Medieval Studies at University College, Dublin. Dr. Anderson recently published several books on traditional tales, and is currently writing a study of Kingship Legends in Antiquity.

Earliest Arthurian Texts

2007 0-7734-5376-8
This volume offers for the first time a comprehensive collection of all the ancient Greek and Latin sources needed to deal with figures answering to names like Arktouros, Ardus, and Artorius, where the bearers seem to have some kind of ‘Arthurian’ character. It challenges proponents of later British Arthurs to explain or explain away various Classical antecedents to the Arthurian tradition. This collection includes text and translation of over one hundred short texts concerning Arthur-figures, enabling Medieval scholars to examine for themselves the basis for claims of ‘Arthurship’ before the age of the historical Gildas. A detailed commentary is provided to introduce classicists to the Medieval tradition and vice-versa. The new texts raise as many questions as they answer; but for that very reason serious students of Arthurian origins cannot afford to ignore them.

Folktale as a Source of Graeco-Roman Fiction

2007 0-7734-5372-5
For over a century, research in Ancient Fiction has concentrated on the literary aspects of the texts available to us. Ancient novels had their roots traced to a number of literary genres, including Epic, Euripidean Romantic drama, and New Comedy. The studies collected in this work look instead at the relationship between formal fiction and popular storytelling. Connections between these two forms of literature were prevalent in various cultures in antiquity, and also reemerged in the significant quantities of folk- and fairy-tales from the Renaissance onwards.