A01=Roger Sherman Loomis
Absalom
Allegory
Author_Roger Sherman Loomis
Biography
Branwen
Brendan
Brennius
Bretons
Category=JBGB
Catharism
Celtic mythology
Church Fathers
Cistercians
Corbenic
Crusades
Cup of Gold
Dolorous Stroke
Domesday Book
Echtra
Enemy of God (novel)
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Erec
Fisher King
Galahad
Gawain
Geoffrey of Monmouth
Goliard
Gottfried von Strassburg
Hartmann von Aue
In Parenthesis
Isidore of Seville
Joseph of Arimathea
Judas Maccabeus
Knights Templar
Kyot
Layamon
Le Morte d'Arthur
Logres
M. R. James
Mabinogion
Manawydan
Matter of Britain
Military art
Morgan le Fay
Narrative
Necromancy
Paganism
Parzival
Paschal
Percival
Peredur
Perlesvaus
Poetry
Prose Tristan
Pryderi
Robert de Boron
Round Table
Sarras
Serglige Con Culainn
Sir Galahad (poem)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Superiority (short story)
T. H. White
The Day of Doom
The Earthly Paradise
The Grail Quest
The Monastery
The Other Hand
Thomas Malory
Titurel
Uther Pendragon
V.
Vindicta Salvatoris
Product details
- ISBN 9780691020754
- Weight: 397g
- Dimensions: 140 x 216mm
- Publication Date: 27 Oct 1991
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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The medieval legend of the Grail, a tale about the search for supreme mystical experience, has never ceased to intrigue writers and scholars by its wildly variegated forms: the settings have ranged from Britain to the Punjab to the Temple of Zeus at Dodona; the Grail itself has been described as the chalice used by Christ at the Last Supper, a stone with miraculous youth-preserving virtues, a vessel containing a man's head swimming in blood; the Grail has been kept in a castle by a beautiful damsel, seen floating through the air in Arthur's palace, and used as a talisman in the East to distinguish the chaste from the unchaste. In his classic exploration of the obscurities and contradictions in the major versions of this legend, Roger Sherman Loomis shows how the Grail, once a Celtic vessel of plenty, evolved into the Christian Grail with miraculous powers. Loomis bases his argument on historical examples involving the major motifs and characters in the legends, beginning with the Arthurian legend recounted in the 1180 French poem by Chrtien de Troyes.
The principal texts fall into two classes: those that relate the adventures of the knights in King Arthur's time and those that account for the Grail's removal from the Holy Land to Britain. Written with verve and wit, Loomis's book builds suspense as he proceeds from one puzzle to the next in revealing the meaning behind the Grail and its legends.
