Robert de Boron

It’s a bloody masterpiece. In three short romances, Robert (or his redactor) creates an origin story for the Grail, tells the quest for it, and then the death of Arthur. In the process he creates something that we can recognise as the Arthurian legend today, not just rumours and whispering of it.

How he does this is very clever. Before you dive in to Joseph of Arimathea, it’s worth reading the Gospel of Nicodemus and some of the Pilate Cycle. These are all short works. Bear in mind that at the time people thought they were actual historical documents. Our author has wound his story around this history. It opens with an orthodox statement of faith. In the introduction (short but excellent), Bryant mentions a theory that this may be to counter accusations of Catharism. Well, possibly, but Robert is on dangerous ground anyway, playing around with truth.

In Merlin Robert switches to the Canonical Gospels and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain. Again, it’s worth having read these beforehand; and again they were all thought at the time to be genuine historical documents on the one had and an actual history on the other. Merlin is a kind of anti-Christ, as it were – not evil, but his life a reflection of Jesus’. I particularly enjoyed how Bryant translates his direct speech into the same rhythms and tone as Nicol Williamson uses in Boorman’s Excalibur. He does a similar thing in one of his other Arthurian translations where he quotes Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail as often as he can.

Perceval opens in a sort of dreamland. Castles that move about, in a forest that can’t be mapped, though which lone knights can quest. A land bound with enchantments. Perceval’s achieving of the Grail is a sort of double-edged sword. On the one hand the enchantments are unbound, but on the other time starts. We’re suddenly in the 13th Century where knights are not lone superheroes but soldiers who can be killed.

I enjoyed this all the more for having read the other books mentioned above, but really you’re ready for this if you’ve read Chrétien de Troyes. As they say in blurbs, if you only read one Arthurian romance this year...… (mehr)

> Où retrouver Merlin? Quelques pistes bibliographiques.
Se reporter à l’article de Tusseau, J.-P. In: Nuit blanche, no. 60 (Juin–Juillet–Août 1995), pp. 40–41. … ; (en ligne),
URL : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/19694ac

> Babelio : rel="nofollow" target="_top">https://www.babelio.com/livres/Boron-Merlin--Roman-du-XIIIe-siecle/21841… (mehr)

EL MAGO MERLÍN

El mago Merlín, el "nacido sin padre», es una de las
figuras más fascinantes del ciclo artúrico. Robert de
Boron, un clérigo nacido cerca de Montbéliard,
escribió, a mediados del siglo XII, un Romance de
Merlin, una de las obras claves que contribuyeron al
desarrollo y extensión de la leyenda.

Inspirado, posiblemente, en leyendas célticas
desarrolló una abundante obra, de la cual por
desgracia sólo conocemos un romance sobre el Santo
Grial y la obra de Merlín.

Impresa por primera vez en París en 3 volúmenes
in-folio, la versión que presentamos fue vertida al
francés moderno por M. S. Boulard en el siglo XVIII.… (mehr)

JOSEPH D'ARIMATHIE

PREFACE

In the closing years of the twelfth century or early in the thirteenth a
certain Robert de Boron, a writer from the Franche-Comté (presesnt-day
Territory of Belfort), composed, presumably at the behest of his patron
Gautier de Montbéliard, what is believed by many to be a trilogy of
romances in octosyllabic couplets.

Despite its many narrative imperfections
and infelicities of style, Robert's work remains one of the boldest attempts
to achieve a broad synthesis of sacred history and secular literary narrative
to survive from the French Middle Ages. What is more, the author inter
wove into this vast canvas of Scriptural events and apocryphal lore a wide
range of spiritual and theological topics much debated in his day. Taken
as a whole the work amounts to a narrative of universal history that
recounts the creation, fall and redemption of man and projects the account
of events forward to the dissolution of the Arthurian world. At the center
of this ambitious undertaking Robert placed the mysterious and splendid
Grail.

Whether or not he knew the Perceval of Chrétien de Troyes, and
whatever interpretation we choose to give to Chrétien's vessel, one thing
is firmly established-the grail has now been transformed into the Holy
Grail. "It acquired," in the words of William Roach, "religious, symbolical,
and allegorical overtones, which deepened its meaning and enhanced its
appeal to the readers of later centuries" (Transformations... " p. 164). Within
this wide panorama of sacred history and secular story, the twice-hallowed
relic of the Precious Blood-for the Grail has become so in the hands of
Robert-occupies a prominent place, first as the vessel of the Last Supper
that Joseph of Arimathea subsequently used to collect the blood as it
flowed from the wounds of the crucified Christ on Golgotha, then as the
symbol of the real presence and prototype of the chalice in the eucharistic
sacrifice. In the declining verses of the Joseph d'Arimathie this sacred relic
of the passion was transported by the Grail fellowship to Britain where it
became in later romance a symbol of spiritual perfection and the object of
a quest on the part of the knights of the Round Table

Of this trilogy consisting of the Joseph d'Arimathie, the Merlin, and the
Perceval (presumed to be the prosification of a verse text by Robert and...… (mehr)