Description
Book SynopsisArthur and the grail stories appeared in this French prose cycle together for the first time; scholars explore its social, historical, literary and manuscript contexts and account for its enduring interest. 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.
Trade ReviewA welcome addition to Cycle scholarship. * FRENCH REVIEW, *
Reliable, insightful...[as] an introduction to European literature's first major work of prose fiction, this is the place to start. Most of us serious about Arthuriana will want the book. * ARTHURIANA *
A welcome collection of essays. * TLS *
Table of ContentsChivalry, Cistercianism and the Lancelot-Grail Cycle - Richard Barber The Making of the Lancelot-Grail Cycle - Elspeth Kennedy *** A Question of Time: Romance and History - Richard Trachsler The Lancelot-Grail Cycle and the Post-Vulgate Cycle - Fanni Bogdanow Interlace and the Cyclic Imagination - Douglas Kelly The Gateway into the Lancelot-Grail Cycle: L'Estoire del Saint Graal - The Merlin and its Continuations - Annie Combes The Book of Lancelot - Carol Dover Varied Repetitions: Prose and Verse Charrette - Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner La Queste del Saint Graal: from semblance to veraie semblance - Emmanuèle Baumgartner The Sense of an Ending: La Mort le roi Artu - Norris J. Lacy 'Mise en page' in the French Lancelot-Grail: The First Hundred and Fifty Years of the Illustrative Tradition - Alison Stones The Lancelot-Grail Cycle in England: Malory and his Predecessors - Helen Cooper Lancelot in Italy - Donald L Hoffman Lancelot in Germany - Hans-Hugo Steinhoff The Spanish Lancelot-Grail Heritage - Michael Harney Neither Sublime Nor Galant: The Portuguese Demanda do Santo Graal - Haquira Osakabe The Lancelots of the Lowlands - Frank Brandsma Manuscripts of the Lancelot-Grail Cycle in England and Wales: Some Books and their Owners - Roger Middleton Selective Bibliography - Carol Dover
