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5 - The Gerbert and Manessier Continuations: Interpolation vs. Conclusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2013

Leah Tether
Affiliation:
Anglia Ruskin University
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Summary

This chapter proposes a rather differently constructed analysis of the two remaining Perceval Continuations from that which I have pursued in the previous two chapters, because these two Continuations, whose authors name themselves Gerbert (generally held to be ‘de Montreuil’) and Manessier, together present the reader with a very different scenario in terms of Continuation. Gerbert and Manessier, it is now generally agreed, composed their Continuations at around the same time (c. 1225) and did so in ignorance of each other's work: it seems that both authors may have intended ‘endings’ to the work – or to use the term now being applied by this analysis, ‘Conclusions’. If, however, Gerbert ever did compose lines at the end of his text that would have rendered his work a ‘Conclusion’ rather than what must, in the terms I defined earlier, be classified an ‘Extension’, they have unfortunately been lost as the extant manuscripts present Gerbert's work rather as an interpolation, placed between the Second and Manessier Continuations. In this chapter, I shall adopt the following approach: I will first consider, in brief terms, the two texts' status as Continuations by applying our definition of Continuation. I will then discuss the reasons for scholars' usual convictions that Gerbert probably intended to provide an ending, and consider the question as to why Gerbert's ending may ultimately have been excised. This will lead into the analysis proper, which will be a comparative analysis of Gerbert and Manessier's ends, including a consideration of each Continuator's management of the ‘terminating thread’ (the Grail Castle events).

Type
Chapter
Information
The 'Continuations' of Chrétien's 'Perceval'
Content and Construction, Extension and Ending
, pp. 165 - 189
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2012

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