Why should a supposedly Biblical relic lay down its literary roots in medieval French literature?

The Holy Grail made its first literary appearance in the work of the twelfth-century French poet, Chretien de Troyes, and continues to fascinate authors and audiences alike. This study, supported by a theoretical framework based on the psychoanalytic works of Jacques Lacan and the cultural theory of Slavoj Zizek, aims to strip the legend of much of the mythological and folkloric association that it has acquired over the centuries, arguing that the Grail should be read as a symptom of disruption and obscurity rather than fulfilment and revelation.
Focusing on two thirteenth-century Arthurian prose romances, La Queste del Saint Graal and Perlesvaus, and drawing extensively on the wider field of Old French Grail literature including the works of Chretien and Robert de Boron, the book examines the personal, social and textual effects produced by encounters with the Grail in order to suggestthat the Grail itself is instrumental not only in creating but also in disturbing, the discursive, psychic and cultural bonds that are represented in this complex and captivating literary tradition.

BEN RAMM is ResearchFellow in French, St. Catharine's College, Cambridge.