Introduction

One indication of the hero’s potential indeterminacy is the relative uncertainty of his name and its etymologies throughout versions of the Grail quest. The name Perceval and its variants invited etymologizing explanations in the medieval texts themselves, deriving either from perce val (through this valley) or perce val (pierce the valley)—and continuing in later formations such as Perceforest. It is significant that in Chretien’s and Wolfram’s narratives, the hero’s mother has not only kept her child from all contact with chivalric culture, but has also withheld from him the crucial element of his identity–his name. Exploration of the Perceval character and themes related to him must begin with Chretien de Troyes, who stands at the head of so much Arthurian matter in romance form. Perlesvaus and the Didot Perceval are the first, or at least among the very first, French Arthurian romances in prose, dating from the first decade of the thirteenth century.