Harding Undergraduate Research Conference
Document Type
Research Paper
Date of presentation
4-2025
Faculty Advisor
Dr. Mac Sandlin
Abstract
The classic The Once and Future King, written by T.H. White, is a selection of four fantasy novels with one, linear plot: the story of Arthur, the mythological King of England. Reinhold Niebuhr’s book Moral Man and Immoral Society details the Christian realism of a world in need of justice without the ability to achieve perfect application. Through good education, Arthur is well endowed with Niebuhr’s requirements for a functional society: knowledge, honor, wisdom, and compassion. Such king-like qualities make him one of the most influential mythological characters in history, and a grand exemplar for maintaining ethical goals and personal ideals in the reality of a broken world. This essay establishes such political ideals of virtue in the face of realism from Reinhold Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society; identifying themes of ethical support for a focused analysis of kingship as it relates to Arthurian Legend.
Copyright held by
Author
Creative Commons Usage Rights
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Bewley, C. (2025). Long Live the Good King: Arthur’s Niebuhrian Kingship and Pursuit of Justice in The Once and Future King. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.harding.edu/hurc/3
Included in
Classics Commons, Law Commons, Political Science Commons, Sociology Commons
