ABSTRACT
Malory’s Arthuriad is a compendium of transformations, drawn from a number of sources, both Frenchbooks and English. The three great French cycles from which he draws are the Lancelot-Grail, the Post-Vulgate Roman du Graal, and the Prose Tristan. The Vulgate Cycle and the Prose Tristan, particularly, make awkward bedfellows. Malory’s Percivale is drawn from competing literary traditions and, as a result, seems to have something of a split personality. In Wolfram’s Parzival, the Grail family is restored when Parzival returns to the Grail Castle to ask the question that heals the Maimed King: Parzival is joined by his wife and children, and then takes his proper place as the new Grail King. Even his half-brother, the Saracen Feirefiz, has a family destiny in the story, being reconciled with Parzival, baptized, and married to the Grail Princess, in order to found a Christian dynasty in India.
