Lancelot-Grail: The Old French Arthurian Vulgate and Post-Vulgate in Translation: 5. Lancelot part V and VI Book

This volume is part of the complete "long cyclic" version of the "Lancelot-Grail (Vulgate) Cycle" which includes (i) "The Story of the Holy Grail", (iii) the massive prose "Lancelot", (iv) "The Quest of the Holy Grail", and (v) "The Death of Arthur".

The Norris J. Lacy edition in 10 volumes [of which this is vol 5] gives a complete translation of the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate Cycles: 1 Holy Grail, 2 Merlin, 3-5 Lancelot, 6 Quest of the Holy Grail, 7 Death of Arthur, 8-9 Post-Vulgate, 10 chapter summaries and index.

"Volume 5: Lancelot, Parts V and VI" covers the "Agravain" section (roughly the last third) of the 13th century medieval prose Lancelot (c. 1215-25). (The previous volumes of the Lancelot are vol 3: Lancelot, Parts I and II and vol 4: Lancelot, Parts III and IV.)

This English language translation (part V by William W. Kibler, part VI by Carleton W. Carroll) is based on vols iv-vi of A. Micha's nine volume edition of the "long cyclic" version of the "Lancelot" (those three volumes being largely based on the c.1250 manuscript: Oxford, Bodl. Rawlinson D. 899), with occasional corrections supplied from H.O. Sommer's 7 volume edition of the complete "short cyclic" version of "The Vulgate Version of Arthurian Romances".

In this last third of the Lancelot story, the knights of the round table continue to seek out news of Lancelot, who himself is challenged by a number of difficulties (including a poisoning at a spring that makes his hair fall out; being imprisoned by Morgan la Fay; being deceived into sleeping with the maiden of the grail castle and conceiving Galahad...); later in the volume, Arthur wages war against king Claudas; later, Lancelot is exiled by the queen because he has been tricked into sleeping once again with Galahad's mother, and this banishment drives him insane and he wanders the countryside disheveled and with amnesia, until he is finally cured at the grail castle; the volume ends with Lancelot's return to Arthur's court and the announced arrival of Galahad, thus leading into the next volume of the cycle, The Quest of the Grail.

Like all fantasy/adventure genre fiction, the repetition of jousts and tournaments and maidens and dwarves and armor and pavilions may be somewhat tiresome, especially after having read all six parts (but, frankly, these same repetitions can be seen mutatis mutandis in superhero comics, westerns, Flash Gordon, etc.)... But there is a great deal in the enormous prose Lancelot, and especially in this volume, that is magical and mysterious and haunting and (sometimes) tragic. There is also much that leaves one deeply at odds with the cultural distance that separates us from the mentalités of 13th century Europe (violence, rape, glorification of battle and blood). The overall size and scope of the prose Lancelot and Lancelot-Grail cycle is breathtaking (Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings...), phenomenally richer and more enjoyable than Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, and it's a shame that it isn't read more often.