Perceval, the Story of the Grail

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Perceval, the Story of the Grail (French:Perceval, le Conte du Graal) is the unfinished fifth romance of Chrétien de Troyes. Probably written between 1181 and 1191, it is dedicated to Chrétien's patron Philip, Count of Flanders.[1]

Chrétien claimed to be working from a source given to him by Philip. The poem relates the adventures and growing pains of the young knight Perceval, and breaks off after only 9,000 lines. Later authors added 54,000 more lines in what are known collectively as the Four Continuations.[2]Perceval is the earliest recorded account of the Holy Grail.[3]

Scenes from Perceval
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Scenes from Perceval

Contents

[edit] The poem

The poem opens with Perceval, whose mother has raised him apart from civilization in the forests of Wales since his father's death, encountering knights and realizing he wants to be one. Despite his mother's objections, the boy heads to King Arthur's court, where a young girl predicts greatness for him. He is taunted by Sir Kay, but receives knighthood and sets out for adventure. He rescues and falls in love with the young Princess Blanchefleur, and trains under the experienced Gornemant.

Eventually he comes across the Fisher King, who invites him to stay at his castle. While there, he witnesses a strange procession in which young men and women carry magnificent objects from one chamber to another, passing before him at each course of the meal. First comes a young man carrying a bleeding lance, then two boys carrying candelabras. Finally, a beautiful young girl emerges bearing an elaborately decorated graal, or "grail". The Grail contains a single Mass wafer, which miraculously sustains the Fisher King’s wounded father. Perceval, who had been warned against talking too much, remains silent through all of this, and wakes up the next morning alone. He returns to Arthur's court.

Before long, a loathly lady of the standard Celtic type enters the court and admonishes Percival for failing to ask his host about the Grail, as the appropriate question would have healed the wounded king. The lady announces other quests that the Knights of the Round Table proceed to take up.

The next section of the poem deals with Arthur's nephew and best knight Gawain, who has been challenged to a duel by a knight who claims Gawain had slain his lord. Gawain offers a contrast and complement to Perceval's naiveté, and his adventures showcase a courtly knight having to function in un-courtly settings. One of the section's most interesting episodes is Gawain's liberation of a castle whose inhabitants include his long lost mother and grandmother, as well as his sister Clarissant, whose existence was unknown to him. After this point, Perceval is mentioned only briefly until the completed section nears its end. He meets a hermit, his uncle, who instructs him in the ways of the spirit and teaches him about the Grail. After Perceval has received his uncle's wisdom, the narrative returns to Gawain, but breaks off shortly after.

[edit] The Continuations

Four poets of varying talent took up where Chrétien left off and tried to bring the story to its end.[2][4]

[edit] First Continuation

The First Continuation added 9,500 to 19,600 lines (depending on the manuscripts) to the romance.[2] It was once attributed to Wauchier de Danain, and is still sometimes called the Pseudo-Wauchier Continuation for that reason. It exists in a short, medium, and long version; the short was the earliest and the most poorly linked to Chrétien's work. Roger Sherman Loomis believed this version, which was added to an existing Perceval manuscript ten or twenty years later, represents a tradition of the Grail that was originally independent of Chrétien's. [5]

The short version of the First Continuation describes Gawain's visit to a Grail castle quite unlike Chrétien's, but the later versions wrap up the knight's adventures as told in the original. Gawain's mother and grandmother are reunited with Arthur and Gawain's sister Clarissant marries Guiromelant. Gawain opposes the marriage at first but becomes reconciled with Guiromelant, then he joins Arthur in the siege of two castles. Finally, he visits the Grail castle in a vividly imagined scene.

Inserted into the longer versions are two seemingly independent romances interwoven into the main action. The Livre de Caradoc, starring Arthur's knight Caradoc, explains how the hero got his nickname "Briefbras", or "Short Arm".[6] The other recounts the misadventures of Gawain's brother Guerrehet (Gaheris or Gareth) on a swan boat.

[edit] Second Continuation

Shortly after the First Contination was completed, another author added 13,000 lines to the total.[2] This section was also attributed to Wauchier de Danain, and might actually represent his work. Composed mostly of stock adventures, this continuation has Perceval returning to the Grail Castle and repairing the sword of Trebuchet, but a hairline fissure that remains in the blade symbolizes his still-flawed psyche.

[edit] Gerbert's Continuation

Gerbert's Continuation added 17,000 lines.[2] The author, usually considered to be Gerbert de Montreuil, composed his version independently of Manessier, and around the same time. He had written an ending, but it has been excised from both surviving copies and the rest of the work has been inserted between the Second Continuation and Manessier's in the manuscript tradition. He tries to tie up loose ends left by Chrétien and the others, and the influence of Robert de Boron's work can be felt. Notably, Gerbert includes a complete Tristan episode into his narrative that exists nowhere else.

[edit] Manessier's Continuation

Manessier's Continuation (also confusingly called the Third Continuation, because that is its place in the manuscripts that don't include Gerbert) added 10,000 lines and, at last, an ending.[2] Manessier wrapped up many of the loose ends from the previous authors, and includes several episodes from other works, including the "Joie de la Cour" adventure from Chrétien's Erec and Enide[7] and Calogrenant's death as told in the Queste del Saint Graal section of the Lancelot-Grail cycle.[8] The tale ends with the Fisher King's death and Perceval's ascension to his throne. After seven years Perceval goes off to die in the woods, Manessier supposes he took the Grail, the Lance, and the silver plate with him to Heaven.

[edit] Perceval's influence

Though Chrétien did not complete his romance, it had an enormous impact on the literary world of the middle ages. Perceval introduced an enthusiastic Europe to the Holy Grail, and all versions of the Grail's story derive directly or indirectly from it. Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, one of the greatest works of medieval Germany, is one of those that is based directly on Chrétien's poem.[9] Another is the Welsh Peredur, son of Efrawg, one of the Three Welsh Romances associated with the Mabinogion, though in this case the connection to the French work is unclear.[10][11] French filmmaker Éric Rohmer directed an eccentric adaptation titled Perceval le Gallois in 1978.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Lacy, Norris J. (1991). "Chrétien de Troyes". In Norris J. Lacy, The New Arthurian Encyclopedia, pp. 88–91. New York: Garland. ISBN 0-8240-4377-4.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Grigsby, John L. (1991). "Continuations of Perceval". Norris J. Lacy, The New Arthurian Encyclopedia, pp. 99–100. New York: Garland. ISBN 0-8240-4377-4.
  3. ^ O'Gorman, Richard (1991). "Grail". In Norris J. Lacy, The New Arthurian Encyclopedia, pp. 212–213. New York: Garland. ISBN 0-8240-4377-4.
  4. ^ English translations of the Continuations can be found in Bryant, Perceval, the Story of the Grail, 1996.
  5. ^ Loomis, Roger Sherman (1991). The Grail: From Celtic Myth to Christian Symbol, ch. VI. Princeton. ISBN 0-691-02075-2. [1]
  6. ^ Arthur, Ross Gilbert (translator) (1996). Caradoc. In Three Arthurian Romances: Poems from Medieval France: Caradoc, the Knight With the Sword, the Perilous Graveyard. New York: Everyman's Library. ISBN 0-460-87577-9.
  7. ^ Owen, Arthurian Romances.
  8. ^ The scene in question appears in Lacy, Lancelot-Grail, Volume 4, p. 61.
  9. ^ Wolfram claims his source is not Chrétien but an otherwise unknown Provençal poet named Kyot; this is not accepted by the majority of scholars. See Hatto, A. T. (1980). "Introduction to a Second Reading." In Wolfram von Eschenbach; Hatto, A. T. (translator), Parzival. New York: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-044361-4.
  10. ^ BFR (1991). "Peredur". In Norris J. Lacy, The New Arthurian Encyclopedia, pp. 357–358. New York: Garland. ISBN 0-8240-4377-4.
  11. ^ Gantz, The Mabinogion.

[edit] References

  • Arthur, Ross Gilbert (translator) (1996). Three Arthurian Romances: Poems from Medieval France: Caradoc, the Knight With the Sword, the Perilous Graveyard. New York: Everyman's Library. ISBN 0-460-87577-9.
  • Chrétien de Troyes; Bryant, Nigel (translator) (1996). Perceval, the Story of the Grail. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer. ISBN 0-85991-224-8. [2]
  • Chrétien de Troyes; Owen, D. D. R. (translator) (1988). Arthurian Romances. New York: Everyman's Library. ISBN 0-460-87389-X.
  • Gantz, Jeffrey (translator) (1987). The Mabinogion. New York: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-044322-3.
  • Lacy, Norris J. (Ed.) (April 1, 1995). Lancelot-Grail: The Old French Arthurian Vulgate and Post-Vulgate in Translation, Volume 4 of 5. New York: Garland. ISBN: 0815307489.
  • Lacy, Norris J. (Ed.) (1991). The New Arthurian Encyclopedia. New York: Garland. ISBN 0-8240-4377-4.
  • Wolfram von Eschenbach; Hatto, A. T. (translator) (1980). Parzival. New York: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-044361-4
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