A catábase virgiliana nos sonhos de Lancelote da "Demanda do Santo Graal"

Abstract

Although it resumesthemes and motifs that are already present in other texts of the cycle -such as the allegorical and premonitory dreams or the genealogical figuration of the nine men, which can be found in the Livro de Lancelotor in the Estória do Santo Graal-, the sequence composed by the three dreams of Lancelote in the Portuguese text Demanda do Santo Graal, by placing the action in an imagined underworld, added unusual motifstothe Arthurian context, whose origin seems to be the Aeneid, in particular BookVI. The hero's encounter with hisfather, and also with the lover whose love arouses public reservations, are two of the most visible episodes in which the Portuguese Demanda do Santo Graalreveals a debt to Virgílio's epic.