Perceval: The Story of the Grail, with the Continuations by Chrétien de Troyes

Perceval: The Story of the Grail, with the Continuations Reviews

• 
  Lia

  I started out reading a different translation of Chrétien de Troyes’s poems. The repetitions, the superlatives, the exaggerated aggrandizements quickly drove me to abandon it. I picked up Bryant’s Perceval without remembering it’s the same material — and it took me a while to notice. This translation is pleasant and engaging to read, even though it features the same medieval attitudes, the same perfectionism, the same ennobling of violence, and beauty, and wealth — things that we tend not to tolerate today.
  
  Annotations and footnotes are there, but not overwhelming. On a few occasions, I was getting ready to poke my learned friend about some textual inconsistencies, but was foiled by the footnotes. Bryant is very good at anticipating questions from readers.
  
  Highly recommended for Arthurian newbies wanting to start reading some of the original medieval tales. (I suspect learned Arthurian readers would also find much to admire.)
• 
  Michael

  Chrètian's intentions for the revelation of the mysteries of the Holy Grail can't be known due to his ill grace in dying before completing his story. I like his setup, and don't think the Continuations quite capture his genius, enjoyable additions though they are.
  
  Chrétian evokes an otherworldly atmosphere of the spiritual and divine lying behind the mundane world, imminent and ready to break through. The Continuations use his themes, but feel more like marvel tales, introducing giants, dragons, monsters, devils and demons. Great fun, but different in tone and, possibly, intention to Chrètian's original.
  
  There are layers of meaning, but in this reading what struck me most is the repetition of situations and behaviours, as Perceval closes in on the mysteries, and is either distracted by worldly issues or, when confronted by the outward manifestations of the Grail Procession, is unable to pierce the veil to grasp its hidden spiritual significance. A lesson about life, our tendency to be caught up in doing, forgetting about being.
  
  Of course, he gets there in the end, and where I'd expected some sort of apotheosis, as in later versions of the Quest, in this, rather than being immediately rapturously translated to Heaven, Perceval returns to the world to do good and support others with their spiritual wellbeing, rather like a bodhisatva, I suppose, and I think I prefer this ending.
• 
  Dr. Andrew Higgins

  A key volume of my summer Arthurian studies which was an incredible joy to read although you need to stick at it and persevere through all the twisting versions . A rich soup of Arthurian stories starting with Chretien’s unfinished Perceval and then the ‘fan fiction’ continuations which were written to both complete and extend the narrative and also provide a prequel - Arthurian world building at its best! And so many interesting characters who are only sketched - my fav being the Knight of the Ill-cut Coat - there is a lost tale there to be sure! Started reading in Oxford and ended in Marseille. Highly recommend.
• 
  Jeffrey Dixon

  A naive young Welshman encounters a crippled fisherman, whose wounds seem oddly similar to those of his late father. Offered shelter for the night, he goes to the fisherman’s house, which turns out to be a castle; and where his host gives him a sword which is destined to shatter in his hands. At dinner he witnesses a mysterious procession in which a bleeding lance, which is destined to destroy Logres (King Arthur’s Britain); a golden, bejewelled serving dish (a graal, or ‘grail’); and a silver carving plate or trencher, are carried before him. Too polite to ask anything about what he sees, Perceval maintains a discreet silence...with disastrous consequences! For, as a bestially ugly woman (the Grail Bearer transformed? The Sovereignty of Logres?) will later inform him, had he spoken up, the Maimed King he mistook for a fisherman would have been healed; because he didn’t, lands will be laid waste.
  Thus begins one of the most mysterious and beguiling poems in medieval literature; a story whose fascination is only increased by the fact that its author, Chrétien de Troyes, left it unfinished. Several hands took up the task of continuing and completing the Story of the Grail, with varying degrees of success.
  The anonymous First Continuation focuses not on Perceval but on his friend Gawain. It exists in three versions – a shorter, a longer and a ‘mixed’ – and introduces several new themes, notably a demonic black hand in a perilous chapel and a sword-blow that has wasted Logres. Moreover, it identifies the Bleeding Lance with the one that struck Jesus on the Cross; and the Grail with the vessel which Joseph of Arimathea used to catch the Holy Blood.
  The Second Continuation, attributed to Wauchier de Danain, picks up again the adventures of Perceval, who at last returns to the Grail Castle but is unable to mend the Broken Sword which maimed the Fisher King; so that two more poets (Gerbert de Montreuil and Manessier) take up the challenge, weaving yet more variations on the themes until the whole is brought to an only partially successful conclusion. It must be said that so many loose threads are left dangling and so many themes imperfectly explained that the legend was open to be reworked in the vast prose cycles, on some of which the works of Sir Thomas Malory would be based...but that’s another story!
  Nigel Bryant here does an excellent job of rendering the medieval French of the poets into a lively and engaging English prose. It should be said that he has form in this, for he has already provided us with what are now the standard translations of two of the prose versions of the Grail legend: the Romance of Perlesvaus and the trilogy attributed to Robert de Boron. In fact, he has already translated Chrétien de Troyes’ Conte du Graal along with selections from the Continuations as
  Perceval: The Story of the Grail; but readers who had their appetites wetted by that earlier book will relish the opportunity to savour the many adventures which Bryant could then only summarise. It is also worth noting that the earlier, partial translation of the First Continuation was based on the ‘mixed’ version; whereas now Bryant has translated the whole of the longer version.
  In addition, Bryant has provided us for the first time with translations of two short pieces which are sometimes presented as prologues to Chrétien: one known as the Bliocadran, the name of Perceval’s father; the other as the Elucidation. This latter is singularly ill-named, as it elucidates very little, providing us rather with new themes, such as the theft of the golden cups of the Maidens of the Wells (which the early twentieth century Arthurian scholar Jessie L. Weston controversially argued was a reference to the suppression of a pagan fertility cult which had survived in remote parts of Wales).
  For those wishing to use this huge corpus for study purposes as well as enjoying the story, Bryant has also provided an index (lacking in his other translations); and has divided each poem into named sections, which makes navigation through what can seem like quite an unwieldy text far easier. There’s never been a better time to get to know this marvellous story.
  If you enjoyed this review, you might also be interested in my blog: Myth Dancing (incorporating the Twenty Third Letter)
• 
  Giulio Siciliano

  Ces lectures que l'on fait souvent trop tôt bénéficient beaucoup d'une meilleure compréhension des symboles et de la tradition dont il est question. Le développement de Perceval, l'évolution de son rapport à sa quête et le rôle des péripéties sont riches de sens si l'on comprend la manière dont le féminin est associé au sacré.
  
  Posséder certaines des clés du roman a rendu cette lecture tellement plus intéressante et signifiante que le roman de chevalerie aux rebondissements étranges que le jeune lecteur rencontre d'abord.
• 
  yoghurt

  no one:
  
  
  absolutely no one:
  
  
  Chrétien de Troyes: Mordred is the offspring of Arthur's ~~~~~accidental~~~~ incest with his sister Morgause
• 
  Mark Horne

  As a longtime fan of various things Arthurian, from John Boorman's Excalibur to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I felt it was about time I gave one of the various medieval sources a read.
  
  Nigel Bryant's translation of Perceval is very readable, though I'll admit I've not tried any others, or to read it in the original old French!
  
  Perceval includes a near-endless parade of besieged castles, misunderstandings between knights impelling then towards combat, imperilled maidens who need to be saved, and of course the ultimate quest for the Grail and Lance and so forth.
  
  While generally most enjoyable, it does get a little repetitive after a while, and the First Continuation, with its tedious digressions, wore my patience extremely thin.
  
  De Troyes and De Montreuil's sections in particular are beautifully written, though the latter's obsessive hatred of homosexuality was a nasty distraction; Perceval is very much of its time, with similarly grim attitudes towards Jews and women.
  
  Ultimately, I'm glad I made the effort, and it was fascinating to read a work that is so influential - in places I was reminded of Jack Vance and Michael Moorcock, though of course this was written some 700 years earlier!
• 
  Bruce Macfarlane

  Nigel Bryant's translation really brings this story to life