La Queste del Saint Graal (The Quest of the Holy Grail) from the Old French Lancelot of Yale 229 with Essays, Glossaries, and Notes to the Text

Elizabeth moore Willingham, ed., La Queste del Saint Graal (The Quest of the Holy Grail) from the Old French Lancelot of Yale 229 with Essays, Glossaries, and Notes to the Text. The Illustrated Prose Lancelot of Yale 229, 3. Turnhout: Brepols, 2012. Pp. xviii, 344; 28 color illustrations. isbn: 978-2-503-51678-3. $67.60.

This volume, the third of a projected five devoted to the Old French Arthurian Vulgate Cycle of MS Yale 229, presents Elizabeth M. Willingham's careful and thorough diplomatic edition of the penultimate Vulgate romance, La Queste del Saint Graal. The edition eschews editorial intervention in favor of an extensive apparatus that provides a minimally mediated but amply supported experience of the manuscript Queste for specialists and advanced students alike. With a mandate to record and interpret scribal evidence as accurately, completely, and transparently as possible, the editor reproduces the manuscript's exact format, punctuation, and spelling, meticulously marking several distinct types of initials and all expansions of scribal abbreviations. Willingham's notes (supplemented by contributions from Joan E. McRae, Lynn Tarte Ramey, Stacey Hahn, Virginie Greene, and Walter Blue) explain manuscript readings and codicological details, clarify plot points and ambiguous pronoun referents, and compare the Yale text with those of other edited manuscripts. A tailor-made, context-sensitive Old French word glossary and a separate glossary of proper names facilitate the non-specialist's direct engagement with the original language of the romance. An informative short essay by M. Alison...