Arthur’s Scots scars: The last legion

Abstract

Explores the imagery of physical and collective trauma and its role in constructions of a ‘parallax view’ of history in medieval Arthurian traditions and the work of translation associated with them. In this respect, Arthurian materials seem to embrace an aesthetic of mangling reflective of both the violence of history and vernacular re-imagining. The study illustrates how Doug Leffler’s 2006 film adaptation of Valerio Manfredi’s novel, The Last Legion, can be read as elaborating a cinematic language reflective of key tropes in the antecedent tradition's examination of European imaginings of Rome and its afterlives.