Prose Lancelot Research Articles

Lancelot and the Grail: A Study of the Prose 'Lancelot'

Lancelot and the Grail offers a new solution to a fascinating problem: how the tale of Lancelot's love for Guinevere came to be linked with the Grail. The first part of this book establishes the existence and coherence of a version of the French prose Lancelot in which his love is presented as a source of his chivalric achievement. This romance contains no Grail quest, but only allusions to one already achieved by Perceval. The second part studies the transformation of this ' Lancelot without the Grail' into an integral part of a Lancelot - Grail cycle, where the destructive element in Lancelot's relationship with Guinevere is recognized. Based on many years' work on the textual tradition of a romance copied and read over three centuries, Lancelot and the Grail raises questions of interest to all students of early European literature: the interplay between feudal relationships and literary structures, intertextuality, and the development of a text through time. Readership: students of early European literature.

The Conquests of the Grail Castle and Dolorous Guard

In the Perlesvaus the conquest of the Grail Castle and in the Prose Lancelot the conquest of the Castle of Dolorous Guard both serve to establish the supremacy of the hero. The succession of events in the two recitals contains many parallels proving that they are closely related. The details of the Prose Lancelot are such as to show a probability that it used the Perlesvaus as a source. For instance, the despair of the besieged, but noncombatant, lords, demonstrated on the walls of their castles, is carried swiftly to suicide in the Perlesvaus, reduced to flight and suicidal behavior in the Prose Lancelot. Again, the three shields that give Lancelot marvelous strength and that differ in appearance only through the number of bands that decorate them celebrate nothing, though the whole episode stands as the crowning step in the process by which the Lady of the Lake brought the child whom she educated to acceptance as the best knight in the world. In the Perlesvaus the various supernatural aids all manifest la vertu de Deu in harmony with the sole purpose of that romance, the exaltation of Christianity.

The Kiss: Inferno V and the Old French Prose Lancelot

The Kiss: Inferno V and the Old French Prose Lancelot

The two versions of the false Guinevere episode in the old french prose Lancelot

The two versions of the false Guinevere episode in the old french prose Lancelot

Yvain and His Lion

N ARTHURIAN literature there is a great number of personages bearing the name Yvain. I found no less than 17: 1. Yvain ii filz au roi Uriien, very frequent in verse and prose romances, recognizable by the title messire marking his royal descent. In the prose Lancelot, the Vulgate Suite Merlin, the prose Tristan he has the epithet granz.' 2. Yvain li Avoutres (='bastard').2 His name occurs in Erec, Chr6tien's Perceval, Wauchier's Perceval, Li Biaus Desconeuz, Rigomer, prose Lancelot, Vulgate Suite Merlin, Suite Merlin B.N. 337, Vulgate Queste, Portuguese Demanda (pp. 50 ff., 106 f.), Spanish Demanda (chap. xxxvi), prose Tristan, Malory. An explanation of the epithet is given in Chr6tien's Perceval (11. 8159 ff.), if the reading of the manuscripts H, U, M, Q is adopted, and in Vulgate Suite Merlin (p. 165).3 3. Yvain as Blanches Mains. His name occurs in Wauchier's