ABSTRACT
Some of the fundamental perceptions of what has come to be called “the new medievalism” are related to the status of the medieval text, to its relationships with other texts, to the various phenomena known as mouvance. Perceval is in fact something of a sub-text or intertext for the Perlesvaus, a textual presence we perceive behind or through the prose work or just beneath its surface. The events in the Perlesvaus attached to the Grail family do not always harmonize with the Conte del Graal. Perlesvaus is a long and complex work, and its alterations of material from Perceval are numerous. But whereas innovations in the Perlesvaus were undoubtedly made for ideological and symbolic reasons, they inevitably shape literary response as well. A good many medieval writers explicitly evoke and explain another text or event. Examples include the Bliocadran Prologue and the Elucidation, both of them “prologues” to Chrétien’s Perceval.
