Arthuriana

This article assesses the use of Arthurian themes in Donald Barthelme's The King, Kathy Acker's Don Quixote, and Ishmael Reed's Flight to Canada. While Barthelme has few problems lamenting the loss of Arthurian innocence in the modern world, Acker presents a feminist critique of the Arthurian/chivalric embeddedness in 'masculinity,' and Reed presents a profound and profoundly comic critique of the 'whiteness' of Arthurian values as reflected in the vicious owner of the plantation Camelot, Arthur Swille.