Concetti Chiave
- Arthurian romance centers on the legends of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, featuring elements from Celtic mythology and themes like heroism and loyalty.
- King Arthur, a pivotal figure in English literature, aspired to create a utopian society, guided by the wizard Merlin.
- The legends originated in the 5th century during the Anglo-Saxon invasions of Britain and include fantastical elements.
- Central themes include love, adventure, and heroic combat, with notable stories involving Merlin, Excalibur, and the Holy Grail.
- Authors like de Troyes, Gottfried, and Wolfram contributed to the rich tapestry of Arthurian legends.
Indice
Fantastic elements in the chivalric novel
These stories have many fantastical and magical elements that derived from Celtic mythology.They were also influenced by courtly love, based on themes of heroism and loyalty, in fact the legends tell about a timeless world in which women were considered untouchable object of adoration, in fact courtly love is linked to the Christian idea of passion as suffering.
The characters involved in these stories are knights, ladies, queens, nobles and so on.
Main themes in the chivalric novel
The main themes are love (so the relationship between knight and lady), the search of adventure and the heroic combat. In these legends we can find four main themes:- Origin of the magician Merlin, Arthur and Excalibur, the Round Table
- Exploits of Lancelot, Lancelot and Ginevra fall in love
- The research of the Holy Graal
- Love of Lancelot and Ginevra, Arthur's death.
Arthurian legends' characters and peculiarities
Many authors wrote about King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, for example de Troyes, Gottfried and Wolfram.Specifically, an Arthurian romance is a tale about the legends of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. King Arthur was a very important figure in English literature. Legends tell that he became king when he was very young. From then, under the tutelage of Merlin, he became a great king. His wish was to have an Utopian society.
The legends of king Arthur are dated from the 5th century, when Britain was been invaded by the Anglo Saxons.
Lancelot and Ginevra
The Lancelot and Ginevra novel was written between 1165 and 1185 by Chrétien de Troyes and it was finished by Geoffroy de Lagny.Lancelot is a knight of the Round Table while Ginevra is King Arthur’s daughter.
She was kidnapped by Meleagant, the rebel knight par excellence. For this reason, king Arthur send Lancelot, his best knight, to rescue Ginevra but he fell in love with her instantly.
So, if in the first part of the novel the vassalage is honoured, in the second part is completely abandoned.
As a matter of fact, the authority cannot stop the love and the passion so that Lancelot cede to it and he is imprisoned. Then, he is obliged to go away.
It means that love is a sacrifice because trials need to be overcome to be fulfilled.
The research of the Holy Graal
This storyline is set in the Camelot reign where King Arthur was the sovereign and ordered his knight, like Lancelot, Boort, Galahad, Perceval and Galvano, to look for the Holy Graal.The Holy Graal was considered the wine glassed used during the Last Dinner of Christ and the Disciples, so it is one of the most sacred objects in this world. It also represents the Divine grace, the salvation and the esoteric knowledge.
As a consequence, the voyage to the Holy Graal is a spiritual, moral and metaphysical one.
For this reason an initiation is required and not all the knight succeeded in the quest or not all of them acquire the same religious depth.
For example, Perceval and Boort reached to win the challenges but only Galahad managed to be in a so profonde state of divine ecstasy that he died at Sarraz.
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