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Article: The Holy Grail: From Romance Motif to Modern Genre.
- Article from:
- Folklore
- Article date:
- October 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Folklore Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In his search for the Grail, Tennyson's Lancelot follows a "sweet voice singing in the topmost tower":
... as in a dream I seemed to climb
For ever: at the last I reached a door ...
It gave, and throe' a stormy glare, a heat
As from a seventimes-heated furnace ...
And yet methought I saw the Holy Grail
All palled in crimson samite ... (Idylls of the King, 2:829-44).
Just over a century later, publishers regularly advertise Lancelot's vision of the Holy Grail with promises of new discoveries about the world of ancient Druids, Templars and assorted mystics. Books purporting to reveal the secret behind the Holy Grail literature of the ...