This book focuses on how and why various cultures have appropriated the story of King Arthur. It is about re-vision, how cultures alter inherited texts and are, in turn, changed by them, and it deals with the ways in which various cultures have empowered the Arthurian legend so that power might be derived from it. The authors suggest that the vitality of the Arthurian legend resides in its ability to be transformed and to transform, in its potential for appropriation and use.

Culture and the King deals with issues of literature, history, art, politics, economics, gender study, and popular culture. It crosses the boundaries traditionally erected around these disciplines and addresses emerging critical methodologies concerned with the "poetics of culture."