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English 65B/165B: Arthurian Literature
The Fisher King and the Grail
  1. The Fisher King Chrétien's Perceval, lines 2942-3238 (p. 418-21) & 6422-6428 (p. 460)
    1. The King who is wounded and impotent
    2. The Waste Land surrounding his castle prey to misfortune associated with king's infirmity
    3. The castle which is seen only by Perceval and which disappears when he departs from it
    4. The Lance which bleeds from the tip of the blade
    5. A Grail (see below)
    6. Perceval's role as Elect, who, if he asks the right question, can heal the Fisher King and restore happiness and fertility to the land
    7. The disasters which must follow his failure to do this
  2. The Grail
    The word, "graal," from Latin "gradale," indicating a plate served at stages of a meal.

    From "un graal" to "le graal"

    1. The romances that relate the adventures of knights of King Arthur's time who visit by chance or by design the castle where the vessel is kept:
      1. Chrétien's Perceval, lines 3220-3238 & 6422-6428
      2. Four long continutations of the same, two anonymous, one by Manessier and one by Gerbert de Montreuil
      3. Robert de Boron, Roman de l'estoire dou Graal (ca. 1190)
      4. Peredur, (early thirteenth century)
      5. The Didot Perceval
      6. Perlesvaus, prose romance from northern France
      7. Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival (ca. 1300)
      8. The Prose Lancelot, third member of a vast compilation known as the Vulgate cycle
      9. Queste de saint Graal (ca. 1225), the fourth m,ember of the same cycle
      10. Sir Thomas Malory, "The Tale of the Sankgreal (1470)
    2. The romances which realte the history of the vessel from the time of Christ to the time of Merlin and which account for its removal from the Holy Land to Britain:
      1. Joseph d'Arimathie, by Robert de Boron.
      2. The Estoire del Saint Graal, the first member of the Vulgate cycle, but probably composed after the Lancelot and the Queste.

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