From Ritual to Romance
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Acknowledged by T. S. Eliot as crucial to understanding "The Waste Land," Jessie Weston's book has continued to attract readers interested in ancient religion, myth, and especially Arthurian legend. Weston examines the saga of the Grail, which, in many versions, begins when the wounded king of a famished land sees a procession of objects including a bleeding lance and a bejewelled cup. She maintains that all versions defy uniform applications of Celtic and Christian interpretations, and explores the legend's Gnostic roots.
Drawing from J. G. Frazer, who studied ancient nature cults that associated the physical condition of the king with the productivity of the land, Weston considers how the legend of the Grail related to fertility rites--with the lance and the cup serving as sexual symbols. She traces its origins to a Gnostic text that served as a link between ancient vegetation cults and the Celts and Christians who embellished the story. Conceiving of the Grail saga as a literary outgrowth of ancient ritual, she seeks a Gnostic Christian interpretation that unites the quest for fertility with the striving for mystical oneness with God.
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IN view of the extensive literature to which the Grail legend has already given birth it may seem that the addition of another volume to the already existing corpus calls for some words of apology and explanation. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
IN view of the extensive literature to which the Grail legend has already given birth it may seem that the addition of another volume to the already existing corpus calls for some words of apology and explanation. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This study of how the Grail legend originated and developed is very knowing. The author successfully and rightly connects ancient Nature Rituals to the Grail ceremonies to show how timeless and unremitting is Mankind's quest to become one with the powers of the universe. Where once ancient, agricultural communities held their leader/king to be a divine force upon whose health or sickness their whole survival depended, so too is this basic scenario enacted in the Grail legend; where the adventure of a hero (Gawain, Perceval etc) is to restore to vitality a wounded, sick or even dead king. The relvance of this achievement, on both the public (exoteric) level as well as the personal (esoteric) level is very skillfully examined - and puts it beyond doubt that all great modern literaure and art (not just the Grail stories) are, one way or another, actually all based on a variation of this principle. It will leave you with food for thought, especially if books by the likes of J.G Frazer and Joseph Campbell already intrigue you. Indeed, this is a book better approached only after having read Frazer's The Golden Bough. One small criticism is that the author is sometimes overly pre-occupied with addressing expectant critics and far too often deviates from her investigation to make pleas directly to her peers to consider her evidence/theory with an open mind. Doing this once would have sufficed, but at least half a dozen times Weston departs from the main text and repeats her direct appeal to whoever her scholarly circle is - a bit too concerned (obsessed?) with her status within the literary elite perhaps?The flow of the text would have benefitted from a far more assured attitude, but Weston was a woman in the early 20th century, so having a bit of an inferiority complex was, I suppose, to be expected. Also, Weston assumes the reader will already have ample knowledge of the Grail stories, rather than making it beginner-friendly. She refers to various Grail texts without presenting much background and you're left to fill in the blanks if you can, which isn't too difficult but, as a literary style, it is not very thorough. However, overall this is still superlative stuff.
19 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Entire forests have given their all so that acedemics can enlighten undergraduates with the ripe fruit of their intellect. Unfortunately, most of these tomes are read, plagiarized, and forgotten. "From Ritual to Romance" is an exception. Written more than 60 years ago this book was extremely influential. Superceded by current scholarship, its ideas are notable for the way they shaped some of great works of English literature; T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" is but one example. The origins of modern Arthurian fantasy can be traced back to these seminal works and thus to Weston. Her Fisher King is the definative one for the 20th century.
0 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
this is a typical and interesting product of its time. read it if you are interested in the ideas of a hundred years ago
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