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.

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Medieval French literature encompasses 450 years of literary output in Old and Middle French, mostly produced in Northern France and England. These texts, including courtly lyrics, prose and verse romances, dits amoureux and plays, proved hugely influential for other European literary traditions in the medieval period and beyond. This Companion offers a wide-ranging and stimulating guide to literature composed in medieval French from its beginnings in the ninth century until the Renaissance. The essays are grounded in detailed analysis of canonical texts and authors such as the Chanson de Roland, the Roman de la Rose, Villon's Testament, Chrétien de Troyes, Machaut, Christine de Pisan and the Tristan romances. Featuring a chronology and suggestions for further reading, this is the ideal companion for students and scholars in other fields wishing to discover the riches of the French medieval tradition.

Covers the evolution of the legend over time and analyses the major themes that have emerged.

Kennedy's Lancelot and the Grail offers a new solution to the fascinating puzzle of how the tale of Lancelot's love for Guinevere came to be linked with the legend of the Grail. Based on extensive research on the textual tradition of a romance copied and read over a time span of three centuries, the book raises such issues as the interplay between feudal relationships and literary structures, intertextuality, and the development of a text through time.

"This volume of the "Arthurian Characters and Themes" series is the only one dealing with theme, rather than character. Essays include both newly commissioned and reprinted articles that explore a variety of issues regarding the Arthurian search for the Holy Grail. Topics include analysis of the Grail as vessel, Perceval's sister in the Grail quest, the symbolism of the Grail in Wolfram, chivalric nationalism, and investigations of the use of the Grail in poetry and literature by authors such as Tennyson, T.S. Eliot, and Walker Percy"--Barnes & Noble.