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Hi All!
Thank you, Nora, for setting this up.
I’m Kim (he/him/his). I’m on a fixed-term lectureship at Cardiff. I’ve bored Nora with this before, but Birth of Merlin is a big play for me. Before getting into academia I’d read it in an old book of Shakespeare apocrypha. I was blown away by the weirdness, the extraordinary ideas (for someone who only knew Shakespeare): that a play have the audacity to stage dragons, falling rocks as plot device, a bearded child wizard, etc. etc. I couldn’t stop laughing, in amazement.
During my MA, I was determined to write about it, so I worked it into a piece on ancient British mythic history. Later, looking for an idea for a PhD, I went back to that essay. Sadly, Merlin (along with all Arthuriana) was eventually exiled from the project. But my PhD would have been different, and less fun, without that initial inspiration.
I haven’t re-read it for years, and I’m really looking forward to everyone’s thoughts and insights.
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