Arthur and the grail stories appeared in this French prose cycle together for the first time; scholars explore its social, historical, literary and manuscript contexts and account for its enduring interest.

Arthur and the grail stories appeared in this French prose cycle together for the first time; scholars explore its social, historical, literary and manuscript contexts and account for its enduring interest.

The early thirteenth-century French proseLancelot-Grail Cycle (orVulgate 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 theLancelot-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 theCycle, 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 theLancelot-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 DOVERis associate professor of French and director of undergraduate studies, Georgetown University, Washington DC.

Chivalry, Cistercianism and theLancelot-Grail Cycle - Richard Barber
The Making of theLancelot-Grail Cycle - Elspeth Kennedy ***
A Question of Time: Romance and History - Richard Trachsler
TheLancelot-Grail Cycle and thePost-Vulgate Cycle - Fanni Bogdanow
Interlace and the Cyclic Imagination - Douglas Kelly
The Gateway into theLancelot-Grail Cycle: L'Estoire del Saint Graal
TheMerlin and its Continuations - Annie Combes
The Book of Lancelot - Carol Dover
Varied Repetitions: Prose and VerseCharrette - Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner
La Queste del Saint Graal: fromsemblance toveraie semblance - Emmanuèle Baumgartner
The Sense of an Ending:La Mort le roi Artu - Norris J. Lacy
'Mise en page' in the FrenchLancelot-Grail: The First Hundred and Fifty Years of the Illustrative Tradition - Alison Stones
TheLancelot-Grail Cycle in England: Malory and his Predecessors - Helen Cooper
Lancelot in Italy - Donald L Hoffman
Lancelot in Germany - Hans-Hugo Steinhoff
The SpanishLancelot-Grail Heritage - Michael Harney
Neither Sublime Nor Galant: The PortugueseDemanda do Santo Graal - Haquira Osakabe
The Lancelots of the Lowlands - Frank Brandsma
Manuscripts of theLancelot-Grail Cycle in England and Wales: Some Books and their Owners - Roger Middleton
Selective Bibliography - Carol Dover