The outline of the first chapter
1 Introduction
2 Terminology of the Holy Grail
3 Pre-Christian Holy Grail
4 The Holy Grail as a Christian symbol
5 The quest of the Holy Grail in literature
Chapter 1: Once Upon a Time
Introduction
“The grail remains one myth that fails to die with the passing of time “(Griffin 6).
From antiquity, there have been many mythical stories about great adventures, magic, romantic love and mystery, taking for instance, Robin Hood’s legend, and the famous love story of Cinderella, but none of these have approached the Arthurian legend for its endurance and popularity, one may link this to the Holy Grail which was described by Sandra Miesel, the co-author of The Da Vinci Hoax, in her article”
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In other words, it is a wanted thing by everyone but never gets reached. The Cambridge dictionary gave more or less similar definition
« something that is extremely difficult to find or get ». From this point we can go further and deeper in order to answer what is the Holy Grail and what is its origin?
Pre-Christian Holy Grail
Generally, the Holy Grail today is seen as a Christian symbol in particular, due to the image portrayed by the Middle Ages legends which made a close association between the
Holy Grail and the Cup of Jesus, in which he used in the Last Supper. However, the myth of the grail occurred in many cultures with different themes and stories. This concept according to Gills Morgan, in his book The Holy Grail, had older roots which go back to the pre-Christian epoch. He claimed that if we root back to the Bronze Age (2200-700BC), people of this epoch have made golden vessels, ,such a sacred vessels were given much importance as far as weapons were (5).
The thematology of the Holy Grail also took place in the Greek mythology where we
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in both senses good and bad.
According to her, the middle ages are defined as the other of the modern time; they were portrayed from one hand as the period of social and spiritual harmony ,and the golden age of the religious oppression and persecution from the other hand. Unlike the modern ages where life is shaped as extremely materialistic but more tolerant, reasonable and enlightened .Different categories of readers admire the fascination of the meadieval ages’ literature ,either through studing or just through an an enjoyable reading of different mythical writings . In this epoch, the motif of the holy relation to Christianity was given birth in different literary works. Some link the inclusion the story of this sacred vessel in literature to the growth and the spread of Christianity at that time and according to Gils Morgan this combination came up with fascinating miraculous stories about the Holy Grail.
The medieval ages witnessed the first appearance of the Holy Grail in an unfinished series of romances written by Chretien De Troy between 1170 to1190, this French poet