Parke Godwin was an American writer, who was one of the first to write about Arthurian themes. He was born in New York city in 1929 and was the grandson of a well known journalist. He worked in several jobs including acting and working in advertising. But he wanted to write and was a prolific writer of Science Fiction.
In 1980 he published his first Arthurian novel Firelord, which is a realistic re telling of the Arthur story. He was knowledgeable about Dark Ages history and portrayed Arthur as a fighting soldier and an active ruler. After Firelord he wrote a second novel about Guenevere, set in the Saxon England that came after Arthur’s defeat and death. Guenevere becomes a servant in a Saxon household and learns more about ordinary people. In Firelord Morgana who is usually portrayed as an evil character and Arthur’s half sister, is a more sympathetic person, who is Arthur’s first wife and a leader of the wild “faery” Prydn people… who lead a nomadic life. Guenevere is from an aristocratic background and cannot understand Morgana…. he also works the Tristan and Isolde story into the book and gives a sympathetic slant on Guenevere’s affair with Lancelot….
In the 1990s, he wrote novels about Robin Hood, again setting it in a realistic mediaeval England.
Godwin died in 2103…in California….
No comments:
Post a Comment