A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail CycleCarol Dover DS Brewer, 2003 - 267 pages The early thirteenth-century French prose Lancelot-Grail Cycle (or Vulgate Cycle) brings together the stories of Arthur with those of the Grail, a conjunction of materials that continues to fascinate the Western imagination today. Representing what is probably the earliest large-scale use of prose for fiction in the West, it also exemplifies the taste for big cyclic compositions that shaped much of European narrative fiction for three centuries. A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle is the first comprehensive volume devoted exclusively to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle and its medieval legacy. The twenty essays in this volume, all by internationally known scholars, locate the work in its social, historical, literary, and manuscript contexts. In addition to addressing critical issues in the five texts that make up the Cycle, the contributors convey to modern readers the appeal that the text must have had for its medieval audiences, and the richness of composition that made it compelling. This volume will become standard reading for scholars, students, and more general readers interested in the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, medieval romance, Malory studies, and the Arthurian legends. Contributors: RICHARD BARBER, EMMANUELE BAUMGARTNER, FANNI BOGDANOW, FRANK BRANDSMA, MATILDA T. BRUCKNER, CAROL J. CHASE, ANNIE COMBES, HELEN COOPER, CAROL R. DOVER, MICHAEL HARNEY, DONALD L. HOFFMAN, DOUGLAS KELLY, ELSPETH KENNEDY, NORRIS J. LACY, ROGER MIDDLETON, HAQUIRA OSAKABE, HANS-HUGO STEINHOFF, ALISON STONES, RICHARD TRACHSLER. CAROL DOVER is associate professor of French and director of undergraduate studies, Georgetown University, Washington DC. |
Contents
The Making of the LancelotGrail Cycle | 13 |
Interlace and the Cyclic Imagination 55 | 55 |
The Merlin and its Suite | 75 |
Verse and Prose Charrette | 95 |
La Mort le Roi Artu | 115 |
Malory and his Predecessors | 147 |
Lancelot in Italy | 163 |
The Spanish LancelotGrail Heritage | 185 |
The Lancelots of the Lowlands | 205 |
Towards a Modern Reception of the LancelotGrail Cycle | 237 |
Select Bibliography | 255 |
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Common terms and phrases
adventures Agravain Amadís Amsterdam Arthurian Literature Arthurian Romances Bibliothèque Bogdanow Bohort Brut Cambridge Cart catalogue Charrette Chevalier chivalry Chrétien de Troyes Cistercian Compilation contes courtly Cycle's cyclic death Douce edition Elspeth Kennedy Emmanuèle Baumgartner England English episode Estoire del Saint Eugène Vinaver film fragments Galahad Gawain Geneva Grail quest hero historiated initials Holy Grail Huth Jean Frappier Joseph of Arimathia King Arthur knight L'Estoire Lacy Lancelot and Guinevere Lancelot en prose Lancelot-Grail Cycle Lancelot-Grail manuscripts Lanzelet Library livre Logres Malory Malory's medieval Middle Dutch miniatures Mordred Mort Artu Mort le roi narrative narrator non-cyclic Old French original Oxford Paris Perceval Phillipps Portuguese Demanda Post-Vulgate Prose Lancelot prose romance Prose Tristan Queen reference Robert de Boron roi Artu Romania Round Table Saint Graal story Suite du Merlin thirteenth century tradition trans translation verse Vinaver vols Vulgate Cycle XIIIe siècle