Merlin is a mythical figure prominently featured in the legend of King Arthur and best known as a magician, with several other main roles. The familiar depiction of Merlin, based on an amalgamation of historic and legendary figures, was introduced by the 12th-century British pseudo-historical author Geoffrey of Monmouth and then built on by the French poet Robert de Boron and their prose successors in the 13th century.
Lancelot du Lac, also written as Launcelot and other variants, is a character in some versions of Arthurian legend where he is typically depicted as King Arthur's close companion and one of the greatest Knights of the Round Table. In the French-inspired Arthurian chivalric romance tradition, Lancelot is an orphaned son of King Ban of the lost kingdom of Benoic, raised in a fairy realm by the Lady of the Lake. A hero of many battles, quests and tournaments, and famed as a nearly unrivalled swordsman and jouster, Lancelot becomes the lord of the castle Joyous Gard and personal champion of Arthur's wife, Queen Guinevere, despite suffering from frequent and sometimes prolonged fits of madness. But when his adulterous affair with Guinevere is discovered, it causes a civil war that, once exploited by Mordred, brings an end to Arthur's kingdom.
The Knights of the Round Table are the legendary knights of the fellowship of King Arthur that first appeared in the Matter of Britain literature in the mid-12th century. The Knights are an order dedicated to ensuring the peace of Arthur's kingdom following an early warring period, entrusted in later years to undergo a mystical quest for the Holy Grail. The Round Table at which they meet is a symbol of the equality of its members, who range from sovereign royals to minor nobles.
Le Morte d'Arthur is a 15th-century Middle English prose reworking by Sir Thomas Malory of tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table, along with their respective folklore. In order to tell a "complete" story of Arthur from his conception to his death, Malory compiled, rearranged, interpreted and modified material from various French and English sources. Today, this is one of the best-known works of Arthurian literature. Many authors since the 19th-century revival of the legend have used Malory as their principal source.
Éditions Gallimard, formerly Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue Française (1911–1919) and Librairie Gallimard (1919–1961), is one of the leading French book publishers. In 2003, it and its subsidiaries published 1,418 titles.
In Arthurian legend, the Siege Perilous is a vacant seat at the Round Table reserved by Merlin for the knight who would one day be successful in the quest for the Holy Grail.
Perceforest or Le Roman de Perceforest is an anonymous prose chivalric romance, written in French around 1340, with lyrical interludes of poetry, that describes a fictional origin of Great Britain and provides an original genesis of the Arthurian world. The lengthy work in six books takes its inspiration from the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, Orosius and Bede, the Lancelot-Grail cycle, the Alexander Romance genre, Roman historians, medieval travellers, and oral tradition. Perceforest forms a late addition to the collection of narratives with loose connections both to the Arthurian Romance and the feats of Alexander the Great.
The Lancelot-Grail Cycle, also known as the Vulgate Cycle or the Pseudo-Map Cycle, is an early 13th-century French Arthurian literary cycle consisting of interconnected prose episodes of chivalric romance originally written in Old French. The work of unknown authorship, presenting itself as a chronicle of actual events, retells the legend of King Arthur by focusing on the love affair between Lancelot and Guinevere as well as the religious quest for the Holy Grail. The highly influential cycle expands on Robert de Boron's "Little Grail Cycle" and the works of Chrétien de Troyes, previously unrelated to each other, by supplementing them with additional details and side stories, as well as lengthy continuations, while tying the entire narrative together into a coherent single tale. Its alternate titles include Philippe Walter's 21st-century edition Le Livre du Graal.
Brocéliande, earlier known as Brécheliant and Brécilien, is a legendary enchanted forest that had a reputation in the medieval European imagination as a place of magic and mystery. Brocéliande is featured in several medieval texts, mostly related to the Arthurian legend and the characters of Merlin, Morgan le Fay, the Lady of the Lake, and some of the Knights of the Round Table. It first appeared in literature in the Roman de Rou chronicle by Wace in 1160 and today is most commonly identified as Paimpont forest in Brittany, France.
The Val sans retour, also known as the Val des faux amants or the Val périlleux, is a mythical site from Arthurian legend, as well as a physical site located in central Brittany, in the Paimpont forest. The legend attached to it is primarily recounted in the Lancelot-Grail: in it, Morgan le Fay experiences a disappointment in love with the knight Guiomar, and, in retaliation, creates the Val sans retour in the forest of Brocéliande, where any knights unfaithful in love are imprisoned.
Perlesvaus, also called Li Hauz Livres du Graal, is an Old French Arthurian romance dating to the first decade of the 13th century. It purports to be a continuation of Chrétien de Troyes' unfinished Perceval, the Story of the Grail, but it has been called the least canonical Arthurian tale because of its striking differences from other versions.
Marie Delcourt was a Belgian classical philologist. She studied at the University of Liège (ULg), and obtained a PhD in classical philology in 1919. Under the German occupation of Belgium during World War I she was active in the Dame Blanche resistance network. She was the first female part-time lecturer at the ULg.
Richard Millet is a Lebanese-French author.
José Cabanis was a French novelist, essayist, historian and magistrate. He was elected mainteneur of the Académie des Jeux floraux in 1965 and a member of the Académie française in 1990.
Merlin is a partly lost French epic poem written by Robert de Boron in Old French and dating from either the end of the 12th or beginning of the 13th century. The author reworked Geoffrey of Monmouth's material on the legendary Merlin, emphasising Merlin's power to prophesy and linking him to the Holy Grail. The poem tells of his origin and early life as a redeemed Antichrist, his role in the birth of Arthur, and how Arthur became King of Britain. Merlin's story relates to Robert's two other reputed Grail poems, Joseph d'Arimathie and Perceval. Its motifs became popular in medieval and later Arthuriana, notably the introduction of the sword in the stone, the redefinition of the Grail, and turning the previously peripheral Merlin into a key character in the legend of King Arthur.
The Centre de l'Imaginaire Arthurien is a cultural centre dedicated to the Matter of Britain. It was founded in 1988 in Rennes through the influence of different specialists in Arthurian legend, local politicians, artists and writers. Since 1990 its headquarters has been at the Château de Comper, in Paimpont Forest.
Éditions de la Table ronde is a French publishing house founded in 1944 by Roland Laudenbach. Since 1996 it has been an imprint of éditions Gallimard.
Les Chevaliers de la Table ronde is a 1937 play by the French dramatist Jean Cocteau. In it, Merlin is an old and cruel enchanter who manipulates the court of Arthur with the help of a demon.
François Laroque is a French academic and translator specialising in the works of William Shakespeare. He is professor emeritus of the University of Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3 since 2014.
Bibliothèque nationale de France fr. 113–116 is an illuminated manuscript, now rebound as four manuscripts, commissioned by Jacques d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours and executed by the workshop of Évrard d'Espinques around 1475. They contain the Lancelot-Grail cycle of romances, also known as the Vulgate Cycle, and constitute one of the most complete examples of Arthurian texts in prose, illuminated with 209 miniatures.
