A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle
Title Details

284 Pages

23.4 x 15.6 cm

6 b/w illus.

Series: Arthurian Studies

Series Vol. Number: 54

Imprint: D.S.Brewer

A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle

Edited by Carol Dover

  • Description
  • Contents
  • Reviews
Arthur 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.
Chivalry, 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
"A 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

Paperback

9781843842453

March 2010

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£24.99 / $36.95

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Ebook (EPDF)

9781846150487

January 2002

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Title Details

284 Pages

2.34 x 1.56 cm

6 b/w illus.

Series: Arthurian Studies

Series Vol. Number: 54

Imprint: D.S.Brewer