Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 86 CHAPTER III. THE MATTER OF BRITAIN. ATTRACTIONS OF THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND — DISCUSSIONS SOURCES—THE PERSONALITY OF ARTHUR—THE FOUR W THEIR TESTIMONY THE VERSION OF GEOFFREY ITS HOW THE LEGEND GREW—WACE—LAYAMON—THE ROMAN' — WALTER MAP — ROBERT DE BORRON — CHRESTIEN DE PROSE OR VERSE FIRST?—A LATIN GRAAL-BOOK—THE 1 — THE LEGEND ITSELF — THE STORY OF JOSEPH OF AR] MERLIN—LANCELOT—THE LEGEND BECOMES DRAMATIC— GAWAIN AND OTHER KNIGHTS—SIR TRISTRAM—HIS STC CERTAINLY CELTIC—SIR LANCELOT—THE MINOR KNIGHT —GUINEVERE—THE GRAAL—HOW IT PERFECTS THE STOR OF THIS PERFECTION—NO SEQUEL POSSIBLE—LATIN EPIS LEGEND AS A WHOLE — THE THEORIES OF ITS ORIGIN FRENCH—ENGLISH—LITERARY—THE CELTIC THEORY T CLAIMS—THE THEORY OF GENERAL LITERARY GROWTH- LISH OR ANGLO-NORMAN PRETENSIONS—ATTEMPTED HY1 To English readers, and perhaps not to Englisl only, the middle division of the three great : subjectsl ought to be of far higher interest i See the quotation from Jean Bodel, p. 26, note. Thi of the Arthurian question is very large ; and besides the referred to in the text, much of it is scattered in perioc most useful recent things in English are Mr Nutt's St others; and that not merely, even in the English case, . for reasons of local patriotism. The medi- AUraxtlonsol ? Ok, Arthurian aeval versions of classical story, though attractive to the highest degree as evidence of the extraordinary plastic power of the period, which could transform all art to its own image and guise, and though not destitute of individual charm here and there, must always be mainly curiosities. The cycle of Charlemagne, a genuine growth and not merely an incrustation or transformation, illustrated, moreover, by particular examples of the highest merit, is exposed on the one hand to the charg... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.