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.

New age teachings on self-awareness and enlightenment are explored in an Arthurian-age story of two siblings' journey to enlightenment after they discover Sir Lancelot living as a hermit and uncover his knowledge of the Holy Grail. Alura and Frith, abandoned at an abbey as children, have grown up in social isolation and are desperate for a new life. Sir Bedivere, desolate over the knights' abandonment of the Round Table after the fall of Camelot, has come up with a plan. Sir Lancelot, abandoned by his once-adoring public, has found enlightenment while living as a hermit. Their lives converge when Frith leads Sir Bedivere to Lancelot’s hermitage. There, they learn that Lancelot has found the Holy Grail – within himself. Bedivere tries, without success, to persuade Lancelot to come help him rebuild the Knights of The Round Table. After Bedivere departs, Frith begs Lancelot to teach him, hoping to become a knight. Soon Alura joins them, hoping to snare herself a husband. Lancelot, torn between a desire to be left alone and an obligation to pass his knowledge on, agrees to teach them, but soon realizes that everyone simply wants to use him. Yet, seeing the spark of awareness growing in Alura and Frith, he persists and leads them on a quest to penetrate the barriers in themselves that keep them from attaining the Grail. Then Alura falls in love with Lancelot and incites an angry mob. Bedivere urges Lancelot to flee, but Lancelot stays, struggling to finish his work with Alura and Frith in the little time he has left. Under Lancelot's tutelage Alura and Frith come of age, but the ideas presented in Lancelot's Grail invite the reader to reconsider what coming of age really means.

Composed in Old French between about 1220 and 1240, the Lancelot-Grail Cycle is a group of five prose romances centered on the love affair between Lancelot and Guenevere. It consists of an immense central core, the Lancelot Proper, introduced by The History of the Holy Grail and The Story of Merlin and concluded by The Quest for the Holy Grail and The Death of Arthur. This volume brings together thirteen essays by noted scholars from the first symposium ever devoted exclusively to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle. Exploring the cycle's evolution across the literatures of medieval France, Italy, Spain, Catalonia, and England, the authors take a variety of approaches that highlight a broad range of cultural, social, historical, and political concerns and offer a comparative and interdisciplinary vision of this great romance.

New age teachings on self-awareness and enlightenment are explored in an Arthurian-age story of two siblings' journey to enlightenment after they discover Sir Lancelot living as a hermit and uncover his knowledge of the Holy Grail.

Alura and Frith, abandoned at an abbey as children, have grown up in social isolation and are desperate for a new life.
Sir Bedivere, desolate over the knights' abandonment of the Round Table after the fall of Camelot, has come up with a plan.
Sir Lancelot, abandoned by his once-adoring public, has found enlightenment while living as a hermit.

Their lives converge when Frith leads Sir Bedivere to Lancelot’s hermitage. There, they learn that Lancelot has found the Holy Grail – within himself. Bedivere tries, without success, to persuade Lancelot to come help him rebuild the Knights of The Round Table. After Bedivere departs, Frith begs Lancelot to teach him, hoping to become a knight. Soon Alura joins them, hoping to snare herself a husband.

Lancelot, torn between a desire to be left alone and an obligation to pass his knowledge on, agrees to teach them, but soon realizes that everyone simply wants to use him. Yet, seeing the spark of awareness growing in Alura and Frith, he persists and leads them on a quest to penetrate the barriers in themselves that keep them from attaining the Grail.

Then Alura falls in love with Lancelot and incites an angry mob. Bedivere urges Lancelot to flee, but Lancelot stays, struggling to finish his work with Alura and Frith in the little time he has left.

Under Lancelot’s tutelage Alura and Frith come of age, but the ideas presented in Lancelot’s Grail invite the reader to reconsider what coming of age really means.

"The story of the passionate, adulterous, tragic love of Lancelot and Guenevere is at once the perfect expression of "courtly love" and its inversion. Lancelot, the superhuman stranger in King Arthur's court, sacrifices everything in service of his king, and yet also falls secretly in love with Arthur's queen, the most beautiful woman in all of Britain. That this spotless knight, who repeatedly saves Arthur and his world from destruction, should also be the fateful underminer of the king's self-confidence and, ultimately, a terrible weapon in the hands of Arthur's great adversary Galehaut, is a contradiction that has fascinated the Western mind for hundreds of years." "The Arthurian legend that most of us know comes from Malory and The Once and Future King. But there are also several books of Old French romance, the most detailed of which, the thirteenth-century "Book of Galehaut," gives a surprising and unfamiliar version. It is a double love story - the tale not only of Lancelot's love for Guenevere, but also the love of Galehaut, the Lord of the Distant Isles, for Lancelot. It is the achievement of Patricia Terry and Samuel N. Rosenberg, both seasoned translators of medieval romance, to tease out from the French sources the essential story of Lancelot, Guenevere, Galehaut, and Arthur, and, without distorting the original, retell it for today's reader. Their rich, subtle, and deeply moving narrative is complemented by evocative wood engravings by Judith Jaidinger, the most distinctive visual interpreter of Arthurian legend since Arthur Rackham and Howard Pyle."--BOOK JACKET.