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The Conte du Graal Cycle: Chrétien de Troyes's Perceval, the Continuations, and French Arthurian Romance
Author(s): Thomas Hinton (Author)
- Publisher: D.S.Brewer
- Publication Date: 19 Jan. 2012
- Edition: Illustrated
- Language: English
- Print length: 290 pages
- ISBN-10: 1843842858
- ISBN-13: 9781843842859
Book Description
Chrétien de Troyes’s late twelfth-century Conte du Graal has inspired writers and scholars from the moment of its composition to the present day. The challenge represented by its unfinished state was quickly taken up, and over the next fifty years the romance was supplemented by a number of continuations and prologues, which eventually came to dwarf Chrétien’s text.
In one of the first studies to treat the Conte du Graal and its continuations as a unified work, Thomas Hinton considers the whole corpus as a narrative cycle. Through a combination of close textual readings and manuscript analysis, the author argues that the unity of the narrative depends on a balanced tension between centripetal and centrifugal dynamics. He traces how the authors, scribes and illuminators of the cycle worked to produce coherence, even as they contended with potentially disruptive forces: multiple authorship, differences of intention, and changes in the relation between text, audience and book. Finally, he tackles the long-held orthodoxy that places the Perceval Continuations on the margins of literary history. Widening the scope of enquiry to consider the corpus’s influence on thirteenth-century verse romances, this study re-situates the Conte du Graal cycle as a vital element in the evolution of Arthurian literature.
In one of the first studies to treat the Conte du Graal and its continuations as a unified work, Thomas Hinton considers the whole corpus as a narrative cycle. Through a combination of close textual readings and manuscript analysis, the author argues that the unity of the narrative depends on a balanced tension between centripetal and centrifugal dynamics. He traces how the authors, scribes and illuminators of the cycle worked to produce coherence, even as they contended with potentially disruptive forces: multiple authorship, differences of intention, and changes in the relation between text, audience and book. Finally, he tackles the long-held orthodoxy that places the Perceval Continuations on the margins of literary history. Widening the scope of enquiry to consider the corpus’s influence on thirteenth-century verse romances, this study re-situates the Conte du Graal cycle as a vital element in the evolution of Arthurian literature.
Thomas Hinton is Junior Research Fellow in Modern Languages at Jesus College, Oxford.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Hinton’s notes and explanations of earlier critical views, whether standard references or newer treatments, are cogent and thorough, providing the new student of this literature with direction and the experienced scholar with helpful reminders. ARTHURIANA
A substantial and wide-ranging book. MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW,
A truly well-written and executed study. [Hinton’s] argument is compelling and persuasive. […] When it comes to approach, execution, and overall argument, Hinton is to be commended for his sensitive study of these texts; it sheds not just new, but also important, light on the corpus. MEDIUM AEVUM
Scholars of Old French can only rejoice in the renewal of critical interest in the Continuations of Chrétien’s
Perceval, of which Thomas Hinton’s book forms an indispensable part. H-FRANCE REVIEW[A]n excellent book. […] gives a deep understanding of how stories and history work together in a tangled world. BIBLIOBUFFET.COM
