Les Prologues au ‘Conte du Graal’: ‘Élucidation’, ‘Bliocadran’, ‘L’Elucidation de l’hystoire du Graal’ (1530) ed. by Hélène Bouget (review)

At first glance, this slim volume may seem to the reader merely to bring together, in one place and for the first time, the three known prologues — or prequels — to Chrétien de Troyes’s famously unfinished Conte du Graal, all of which were written after the master storyteller had laid down his pen. The Bliocadran is extant in two manuscripts, one of which also contains the only copy of the Élucidation; both texts have been previously edited, by Leonora Wolfgang (1976) and Albert W. Thompson (1982) respectively. The 1530 printed edition of the Élucidation appears to be the work of a prosifier who had access to both texts, perhaps in one manuscript, though it is unlikely to have been identical with the sole such manuscript that survives today. Despite this new edition’s deceptive appearance, its pages contain a wealth of critical, contextual, and codicological information, with more than half of the book dedicated to an in-depth discussion of the current scholarly status quo, the manuscripts’ linguistic characteristics, and the methods of edition used in preparing the text. That such a vast amount of detail is so deftly and succinctly laid out by Hélène Bouget is to be applauded. The arrangement of these texts in a reliable and affordable critical form was long overdue; but for them also to be so meticulously presented, with an apparatus, glossary, and bibliography that even new scholars will be able to navigate comfortably, is a considerable feat of scholarship, and one which will be sure to prompt new enquiries into these fascinating works. This is not, of course, to say that any one of these three texts can claim to be entirely unstudied. All three have been subject to scholarly enquiry, both individually and together, by scholars such as Maria Colombo Timelli, Jane H. M. Taylor, and Thomas Hinton, amongst many others. Nonetheless, they have still never been given quite the same weight of significance as indexes of medieval rewriting and reception as have the four so-called Continuations of Chrétien’s text. Indeed, although I opened this review with the assurance that this volume does much more than simply bring these three prologues together, in some ways the idea to curate the three texts in one place is Bouget’s most important contribution. In gathering these three texts together, and accompanying them with a scholarly analysis which positions them as part of a collective movement, Bouget underlines, importantly, that the prequel is just as legitimate a form of medieval rewriting as any other, and thus holds just as much potential to inform us about medieval reception as do continuations, sequels, and adaptations.