Holy Grail
- "almost every culture eventually develops a corpus of stories that serves to explain the culture's origins"
- "in Great Britain the comparable body of work is a literary cycle known as the Matter of Britain"
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- "the Matter of Britain is made up of exactly what you would think it would be:"
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- "all of the most important works about the Arthurian mythos"
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- "the Canterbury Tales, tales about the early semi-mythical kings of Britain, and everything in between"
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- "the works are of various genres, including romances, poetry, satirical comedies, songs, and allegedly scholarly documents"
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- "the different works span several centuries, dating from the 9th, but going as far back as the 6th"
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- "this is an impressively extensive compilation of stories that reveals much about King Arthur, his comrades"
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- "Celtic mythology, and medieval European cultural values"
historical Works:
- "the bulk of the Matter of Britain is comprised of romances and chansons de geste (literally "songs of quests")"
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- "a certain Ambrosius is often seen as being one of the most likely candidates for the historical King Arthur"
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- "assuming that he is an actual historical figure, he would have lived in the 5th century after the end of the Roman occupation of Britain in 410"
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- "in addition to ruling Britain as an idyllic utopia from Camelot"
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- "Arthur comes into conflict with a Roman emperor named Tiberius, who demands that Britain return to the Roman fold"
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- "he himself is mortally wounded and carried off to Avalon to recuperate until he can make his return"
pre-Arthurian Influences:
- "the origins of the Arthurian legend can be found in the Matter of Britain"
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- "probably the most important works of this type are the ones written about the heroic knight Ywain (Chretien de Troyes)"
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- "and stories relating to the Welsh myths (the Book of Taliesin, the Mabinogion)"
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- "about hunting for the Holy Grail"
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- "and about relationships between men and women (Tristan and Iseult, Lancelot and Guinevere, and Sir Gawain and his host's wife)"
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- "of whom the latter two are knights of the Round Table who quested after the Holy Grail"
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- "it is in the Welsh Mabinogion - a collection of native Celtic / Brythonic stories"
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- "that we find the earliest references to Arthur"
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- "the character of Yvaine (alternately spelled Ywain, Owain, Owen) is important to the Welsh part of the cycle"
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- "he is based on an historical figure called Owain mab Urien who ruled as a regional king in the 6th century"
the Holy Grail:
- "of course, what most people really think about when they're reminded of the Arthurian stories"
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- "is the quest for the Holy Grail"
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- "to put it more accurately, "the quests for the Holy Grail""
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- "actually, it seems like grail questing was pretty much the hobby of all the knights of the Round Table"
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- "almost all of Arthur's really important knights go after it at some point, but there is never any suggestion that Arthur himself should find it"
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- "likewise, accounts that are simultaneously considered canonical feature mutually exclusive discoveries of the Holy Grail by various knights, especially Perceval"
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- "there's absolutely no consensus as to what the grail actually is"
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- "Chretien's Perceval says the grail is a bowl while Wolfram's version says that it's a stone that fell from heaven"
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- "tied up with the idea of the grail is a figure known as the Fisher King"
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- "the Fisher King is the hospitable but powerless ruler over a formerly great domain. The kingdom is a wasteland and the king is frail"
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- "his name comes from the fact that he leads a boring, fruitless existence, idly filling his days by fishing"
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- "the Fisher King is kept alive solely by the sustenance he receives from the grail"
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- "identified as a magically regenerating communion wafer"
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- "the Fisher King is the protector of the grail in its various incarnations"
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- "and the health of the Fisher King is intimately tied to that of the land"
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- "Perceval, Galahad, and Bors all encounter the Fisher King in their quests for the grail, sometimes together, sometimes separately"
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- "the main point of these quests is not so much in physically locating the Holy Grail"
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- "as it is healing the king and thus the land"
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- "the title character fails to heal the king and thus does not attain the grail"
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- "the Fisher King is being healed, by asking "who does the grail serve ?""
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- "regardless of what the grail really is or who actually gets it, the salient point is"
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- "that winning it leads to spiritual completion"
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- "for the attainment of a perfect soul"
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- "the wisdom required to acquire the grail"
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- "is more important than actually getting it"
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- "this is ultimately the lesson and meaning behind the Holy Grail"
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- "which explains why the concept of a physically cohesive grail failed to solidify"
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- "Perceval could not win the grail because he was too restrained, while Gawain and Lancelot were too passionate"
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- "Galahad, depicted as the most virtuous knight ever conceived, was the only "grail champion""
Conclusion:
- "these stories all derive from a set of ideas that extends back to the pre-Christian era"
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- "the early stories about the Holy Grail and the Fisher King"
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- "are derived from ancient Celtic beliefs"
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- "the characters all speak to us because they were not in the slightest bit perfect or complete"
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- "showing that people have had the same concerns about the world and one's place in it for a very long time"
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- "the Holy Grail stands for a spiritual form of enlightenment"
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