Christopher Davis's Blog - Posts Tagged "review"
Scholar Review
"How the Grail Became Holy" has recently been read and reviewed by a former professor at William & Mary who taught a course on the subject of the Holy Grail. I feel both humbled by his scholarly praise, and validated that my work has passed its first true test of academic scrutiny.
" 5.0 out of 5 stars A WONDERFUL AND EXCITING NEW APPROACH, April 2, 2013
By
EREMON - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: How the Grail Became Holy: A Quest to Discover the Origin of the Holy Grail Legend (Paperback)
This is a new and excellent addition to Grail literature - and a different and refreshing approach. The author is well-grounded in Grail Lore (and there's a lot of it) and does two things very well. He narrows the scope of this work, which keeps it from being over burdensome, and looks at things from an angle that is quite different from the norm. I taught European History, Language and Culture at William and Mary for 33 years and included a course on the Holy Grail for several of those years, deriving it from my other courses on Parzifal, Middle High German, Romanticism and other related topics.
First of all, the scope is described in the title. His intention - and he fully succeeds - is to look at the ancient sources of the Grail - Celtic, Sarmatian and more - and show us the process whereby it became the "Holy" Grail of Medieval European poetry and later of English Romantics such as Tennyson. Secondly, he leads us slowly, carefully and precisely to his thesis: better than any other theory he gives strong evidence that the Holy Grail we see portrayed in so many settings has, by Medieval times, taken on the characteristics of Jesus Christ Himself.
To do this, he compares most versions of the Grail and deduces five significant characteristics: 1) It produces an endless supply of food and/or drink; 2) It heals or regenerates those who use it; 3) It emits a brilliant light; 4) It takes away people's speech; 5) It chooses only those who are worthy. Most - but not all - of these five show up best in its ancient Celtic origins. The other main sources are: Sarmatian theory, Ritual theory, Eucharist theory and Crusade theory. Most - but again not all - show up best in Wolfram von Eschenbach's "Parzifal". By the way, we know that knight as Percival and his role in most legends is less important than that of Galahad. Yet he is of incomparably more importance than Galahad.
I don't want to outline any more of this book; it's more fun for you to read it yourself, which I strongly recommend. It's 134 pages in my edition, with double-spaced type, so it's not going to take you months to work your way through it - even though, as a Grail scholar myself, I took about a month to go through it and check my own sources. So if you've heard of King Arthur - and who hasn't? - you'll already have some background yourself. But please remember that Arthur plays almost no role in this book; it's the Holy Grail we're looking into here. "
" 5.0 out of 5 stars A WONDERFUL AND EXCITING NEW APPROACH, April 2, 2013
By
EREMON - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: How the Grail Became Holy: A Quest to Discover the Origin of the Holy Grail Legend (Paperback)
This is a new and excellent addition to Grail literature - and a different and refreshing approach. The author is well-grounded in Grail Lore (and there's a lot of it) and does two things very well. He narrows the scope of this work, which keeps it from being over burdensome, and looks at things from an angle that is quite different from the norm. I taught European History, Language and Culture at William and Mary for 33 years and included a course on the Holy Grail for several of those years, deriving it from my other courses on Parzifal, Middle High German, Romanticism and other related topics.
First of all, the scope is described in the title. His intention - and he fully succeeds - is to look at the ancient sources of the Grail - Celtic, Sarmatian and more - and show us the process whereby it became the "Holy" Grail of Medieval European poetry and later of English Romantics such as Tennyson. Secondly, he leads us slowly, carefully and precisely to his thesis: better than any other theory he gives strong evidence that the Holy Grail we see portrayed in so many settings has, by Medieval times, taken on the characteristics of Jesus Christ Himself.
To do this, he compares most versions of the Grail and deduces five significant characteristics: 1) It produces an endless supply of food and/or drink; 2) It heals or regenerates those who use it; 3) It emits a brilliant light; 4) It takes away people's speech; 5) It chooses only those who are worthy. Most - but not all - of these five show up best in its ancient Celtic origins. The other main sources are: Sarmatian theory, Ritual theory, Eucharist theory and Crusade theory. Most - but again not all - show up best in Wolfram von Eschenbach's "Parzifal". By the way, we know that knight as Percival and his role in most legends is less important than that of Galahad. Yet he is of incomparably more importance than Galahad.
I don't want to outline any more of this book; it's more fun for you to read it yourself, which I strongly recommend. It's 134 pages in my edition, with double-spaced type, so it's not going to take you months to work your way through it - even though, as a Grail scholar myself, I took about a month to go through it and check my own sources. So if you've heard of King Arthur - and who hasn't? - you'll already have some background yourself. But please remember that Arthur plays almost no role in this book; it's the Holy Grail we're looking into here. "
