Misunderstanding, Misperception and Mistakes: The Logic of the Grail in Old French Arthurian Romance and Thomas Malory’s Tale of the Sankgreal

This article seeks to resituate critical discussions about logic in the Old French Grail romances and Thomas Malory’s Tale of the Sankgreal. Where previous scholarship has emphasised the mystical elements of the Old French Grail narratives to suggest alternate meanings for the Grail itself, this article reads the Grail miracles as structuring devices that reflect classical theories of dialectic and demonstrative argumentation. Through examining one example from Chrétien de Troyes’ Perceval, the Didot-Perceval, The Vulgate Cycle Queste del Saint Graal, and Thomas Malory’s Tale of the Sankgreal, this article also highlights fundamental similarities between the logical systems underlying each Grail narrative that are not restricted by language or date of composition. Thus, the article depicts Malory not just as consciously drawing upon the Vulgate Queste del Saint Graal, but also as unconsciously inheriting elements from each of his Old French predecessors.

La quête inachevée. Le sang sur la neige dans Kamouraska d’Anne Hébert et le Conte du Graal de Chrétien de Troyes

Cet article remet en question un intertexte qui, tout crucial qu’il soit, est passé presque entièrement inaperçu : celui entre Kamouraska d’Anne Hébert et Le Conte du Graal de Chrétien de Troyes. En interrogeant la façon dont Hébert remanie l’image clé chez Chrétien du sang sur la neige, nous soulignons, pour la première fois, le rôle indispensable que l’imaginaire du Graal occupe dans le corpus de cette auteure.

O arrependimento de Perceval: relações entre a forma, o sentido e a história no Conto do Graal de Chrétien de Troyes (c.1180-1191)

A partir de um episódio do Conto do Graal, de Chrétien de Troyes, são analisados alguns elementos formais dessa narrativa, sobretudo, aqueles relacionados com os encadeamentos dos episódios e com as motivações de seu protagonista, tentando colocar em evidência a lógica de seu funcionamento. Para que se deixe mais evidente essa lógica, é feita uma comparação com dois episódios de O crime e castigo, do romancista russo Fiódor Dostoiévski. Os sentidos propostos a partir dessa análise são, enfim, situados em seu contexto mais amplo e relacionados, em particular, com o estatuto da pessoa no Ocidente medieval.

Ovid and Chrétien de Troyes

Readers’ cultural expectations regarding literary masterpieces can hamper their experience of humor. This chapter studies the passage in Chrétien de Troyes’ Yvain in which the knight’s faithful lion is said to run like a frantic hog. This simile is so surprising that it has generally been ignored not only by medievalists but also by medieval translators of Chrétien’s Yvain. Yet its potential humor is highly significant, as its disruptive quality constitutes an astute response to the already disruptive thrust of Ovid’s legend of Pyramus and Thisbe. The comparative and intertextual approach of this chapter brings together, on the one hand, Chrétien’s romance with its translations in Middle English, Old Norse, and Old Swedish, and on the other hand, Ovid’s seminal legend with its medieval adaptations by Chaucer, Gower, Boccaccio, and the anonymous author of the Old French Piramus et Tisbé. In every work, the dynamics of perception and cognition are central to the plot.

Amor cortés y discurso sobre el amor:

El concepto de amor cortés, aún en nuestros días, no queda definido de forma unánime por la crítica. En efecto, muchas son las teorías sobre la definición del fin’amors que se han defendido por los distintos especialistas desde que en 1883 Gaston Paris acuñara la expresión amour courtois en su estudio sobre la relación de Lancelot y Ginebra en la obra de Chrétien de Troyes. En este sentido, y siguiendo los presupuestos de Rüdiger Schnell (1989), cabe señalar que la diversidad, la pluralidad y los múltiples puntos de vista sobre el amor de las obras literarias medievales cuyo eje central es el amor, ya se trate de épica o lírica, nos conduce más a una serie de características propias de este tipo de amor que a una definición específica del mismo. En este trabajo analizaremos la presencia de estas características a partir del discurso femenino de cuatro Lieder ampliamente conocidos del Minnesangs Frühling, pertenecientes a las primeras etapas del Minnesang y compuestos por dos de los grandes Minnesänger de la época: Der von Kürenberg (Ich stuont mir nehtint spâte, Ich zôch mir einen valken y Swenne ich stân aleine) y Dietmar von Eist (Ez stuont ein vrouwe aleine).

Experiência feminina e relações de poder nos romans do século XII

O presente artigo pretende demonstrar como a literatura pode ser uma fonte rica para uma compreensão mais ampla das diferentes maneiras em que as relações de poder se manifestam entre homens e mulheres na Idade Média. Partindo de uma análise de obras historiográficas dos anos 1980-2000, influenciadas pelos novos rumos dos estudos de gênero e pelos movimentos feministas, analisamos a maneira como o poder foi interpretado pela historiografia no que diz respeito à chamada “história das mulheres”. Em seguida, para propor uma visão mais ampla do que significam as relações de poder, são analisados os romans de Chrétien de Troyes e de Béroul para demonstrar o potencial histórico dessas fontes e a complexidade das experiências femininas no século XII.

Peredur and the Problem of Inappropriate Questions

This article reopens the question of the relationship between the medieval Welsh version of the Grail narrative, the Historia Peredur vab Efrawc, and the French Conte du Graal of Chrétien de Troyes. It explores the seeming inconsistencies in the Welsh tale’s presentation of the Grail procession, and suggests that the hero’s actions, and in particular his reticence in asking questions about the procession, should be read in the context of medieval Welsh customs and legal tradition. The article concludes with an exploration of the implications of the proposed interpretation for the reading of Historia Peredur as a postcolonial narrative.

‘He ne wiste nother of evyll ne gude’: A Prelapsarian Perceval

Departing from the observation that the Middle English romance of Sir Perceval of Galles quotes from Genesis at two crucial moments, this study provides a coherent reading of the text, explaining some of its idiosyncrasies and triangulating it with the versions of Chrétien de Troyes and Wolfram von Eschenbach. What distinguishes the Middle English version from the continental texts are its purposeful absences, i. e. that which the author chooses to abbreviate or leave out altogether. The result is the story of a prelapsarian creature who stumbles through an Edenic landscape where time and mortality have been suspended and individual culpability does not exist. Sir Perceval’s non-existent biblical knowledge, blocked by his mother and ultimately brought to its end by a literal fall from his horse, leaves him invincible, ungendered and immortal. It also serves to explain his unapologetic violence as well as his complete lack of sexual desire. This bold experiment cannot last – Sir Perceval does eventually discover knighthood, masculinity and mortality. Unfortunately, these three are inseparably linked: being a knight, being a man and being dead are one and the same thing in Sir Perceval’s universe.