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Dolorous Stroke
The Dolorous Stroke is a trope in Arthurian legend and some other stories of Celtic origin. In its fullest form, it concerns the Fisher King ( King Pellehan or Anfortas), the guardian of the Holy Grail, who falls into sin and consequently suffers a wound from a mystical weapon (often the Spear of Destiny from Christian eschatology). He becomes the Maimed King, and his kingdom suffers similarly, becoming the Wasteland: neither will be healed until the successful completion of the Grail Quest. The stroke is usually described as being to the king's thighs: this has been taken as a euphemism for the genitals, which are explicitly stated to be the location of Anfortas's wound in Wolfram von Eschenbach's ''Parzival''. In the Post-Vulgate Cycle, Thomas Malory's '' Le Morte d'Arthur'', and later works based on them, the stroke is delivered by Sir Balin Sir Balin le Savage , also known as the Knight with the Two Swords, is a character in the Arthurian legend. Like Sir Galahad, Sir ...
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The Castle Rocked And Rove Throughout
''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the Most common words in English, most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant s ...
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Grail Quest
The Holy Grail (french: Saint Graal, br, Graal Santel, cy, Greal Sanctaidd, kw, Gral) is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miraculous healing powers, sometimes providing eternal youth or sustenance in infinite abundance, often guarded in the custody of the Fisher King and located in the hidden Grail castle. By analogy, any elusive object or goal of great significance may be perceived as a "holy grail" by those seeking such. A "grail" (Old French: ''graal'' or ''greal''), wondrous but not unequivocally holy, first appears in ''Perceval, the Story of the Grail'', an unfinished chivalric romance written by Chrétien de Troyes around 1190. Chrétien's story inspired many continuations, translators and interpreters in the later-12th and early-13th centuries, including Wolfram von Eschenbach, who perceived the Grail as a stone. The Christian, Celtic or possibly other origi ...
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Sir Balin
Sir Balin le Savage , also known as the Knight with the Two Swords, is a character in the Arthurian legend. Like Sir Galahad, Sir Balin is a late addition to the medieval Arthurian world. His story, as told by Thomas Malory in '' Le Morte d'Arthur'', is based upon that told in the continuation of the second book of the Post-Vulgate cycle of legend, the ''Suite du Merlin''. A knight before the Round Table was formed, Sir Balin lives only for a few weeks following his release from King Arthur's prison and his subsequent slaying of a Lady of the Lake. Just prior to his departure, his destiny is sealed by the arrival of a mysterious damsel bearing a sword that only the "most virtuous" knight in Arthur's court will be able to draw; Balin draws this sword easily. His adventures end when Balin and his brother Balan destroy each other in single combat, fulfilling an earlier prophecy about the destiny of the bearer of the damsel's sword. Prior to his tragic end, this ill-fated knight co ...
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Le Morte D'Arthur
' (originally written as '; inaccurate Middle French for "The Death of Arthur") is a 15th-century Middle English prose reworking by Sir Thomas Malory of tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table, along with their respective folklore. In order to tell a "complete" story of Arthur from his conception to his death, Malory compiled, rearranged, interpreted and modified material from various French and English sources. Today, this is one of the best-known works of Arthurian literature. Many authors since the 19th-century revival of the legend have used Malory as their principal source. Apparently written in prison at the end of the medieval English era, ''Le Morte d'Arthur'' was completed by Malory around 1470 and was first published in a printed edition in 1485 by William Caxton. Until the discovery of the Winchester Manuscript in 1934, the 1485 edition was considered the earliest known text of ''Le Morte d'Arthur'' and that ...
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Thomas Malory
Sir Thomas Malory was an English writer, the author of '' Le Morte d'Arthur'', the classic English-language chronicle of the Arthurian legend, compiled and in most cases translated from French sources. The most popular version of '' Le Morte d'Arthur'' was published by the famed London printer William Caxton in 1485. Much of Malory's life history is obscure, but he identified himself as a "knight prisoner", apparently reflecting that he was either a criminal or a prisoner-of-war. Malory's identity has never been confirmed. However, since modern scholars began researching his identity the most widely accepted candidate has been Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire, who was imprisoned at various times for criminal acts and possibly also for political reasons during the Wars of the Roses. Identity Most of what is known about Malory stems from the accounts describing him in the prayers found in the Winchester Manuscript of ''Le Morte d'Arthur''. He is described as a "" ...
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Post-Vulgate Cycle
The ''Post-Vulgate Cycle'', also known as the Post-Vulgate Arthuriad, the Post-Vulgate ''Roman du Graal'' (''Romance of the Grail'') or the Pseudo-Robert de Boron Cycle, is one of the major Old French prose cycles of Arthurian literature from the early 13th century. It is considered essentially a rewriting of the earlier ''Vulgate Cycle'' (also known as the ''Lancelot-Grail'' cycle), with much left out but also much added, including characters and scenes from the Prose ''Tristan''. History The Post-Vulgate Cycle, written anonymously probably between 1230 and 1235 (different estimates of the beginning date) to 1240, is an attempt to create greater unity in the material, and to de-emphasise the secular love affair between Lancelot and Guinevere in favor of the Quest for the Holy Grail. It omits almost all of the Vulgate Cycle's ''Lancelot Proper'' section, making it much shorter than its source, and directly condemns everything but the spiritual life. It did not survive complete, ...
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Parzival
''Parzival'' is a medieval romance (heroic literature), romance by the knight-poet Wolfram von Eschenbach in Middle High German. The poem, commonly dated to the first quarter of the 13th century, centers on the Arthurian hero Percival, Parzival (Percival in English language, English) and his long quest for the Holy Grail following his initial failure to achieve it. ''Parzival'' begins with the knightly adventures of Parzival's father, Gahmuret, his marriage to Herzeloyde ( gmh, herzeleide, "heart's sorrow"), and the birth of Parzival. The story continues as Parzival meets three elegant knights, decides to seek King Arthur, and continues a spiritual and physical search for the Holy Grail, Grail. A long section is devoted to Parzival's friend Gawain, Gawan and his adventures defending himself from a false murder charge and winning the hand of the maiden Orgeluse. Among the most striking elements of the work are its emphasis on the importance of humility, compassion, sympathy and ...
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Wolfram Von Eschenbach
Wolfram von Eschenbach (; – ) was a German knight, poet and composer, regarded as one of the greatest epic poets of medieval German literature. As a Minnesinger, he also wrote lyric poetry. Life Little is known of Wolfram's life. There are no historical documents which mention him, and his works are the sole source of evidence. In ''Parzival'', he talks of ''wir Beier'' ("we Bavarians"); the dialect of his works is East Franconian. This and a number of geographical references have resulted in the present-day Wolframs-Eschenbach, until 1917 Obereschenbach, near Ansbach in present-day Bavaria, being officially designated as his birthplace. However, the evidence is circumstantial and not without problems - there are at least four other places named Eschenbach in Bavaria, and Wolframs-Eschenbach was not part of the Duchy of Bavaria ('' Altbayern'') in Wolfram's time. The arms shown in the Manesse manuscript come from the imagination of a 14th-century artist, drawing on the f ...
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Genitals
A sex organ (or reproductive organ) is any part of an animal or plant that is involved in sexual reproduction. The reproductive organs together constitute the reproductive system. In animals, the testis in the male, and the ovary in the female, are called the ''primary sex organs''. All others are called ''secondary sex organs'', divided between the external sex organs—the genitals or external genitalia, visible at birth in both sexes—and the internal sex organs. Mosses, ferns, and some similar plants have gametangia for reproductive organs, which are part of the gametophyte. The flowers of flowering plants produce pollen and egg cells, but the sex organs themselves are inside the gametophytes within the pollen and the ovule. Coniferous plants likewise produce their sexually reproductive structures within the gametophytes contained within the cones and pollen. The cones and pollen are not themselves sexual organs. Terminology The ''primary sex organs'' are the gonads, a p ...
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Wasteland (mythology)
The Wasteland is a Celtic motif that ties the barrenness of a land with a curse that must be lifted by a hero. It occurs in Irish mythology and French Grail romances, and hints of it may be found in the Welsh ''Mabinogion''. An example from Irish literature occurs in the ''Echtrae Airt meic Cuinn'' (Echtra, or adventure in the Otherworld The concept of an otherworld in historical Indo-European religion is reconstructed in comparative mythology. Its name is a calque of ''orbis alius'' (Latin for "other Earth/world"), a term used by Lucan in his description of the Celtic Otherworld ..., of Art mac Cuinn). Recorded in the 14th century but likely taken from an older oral tradition, ''Echtrae Airt meic Cuinn'' is nominally about Art, though the adventures of his father Conn of the Hundred Battles take up the first part of the narrative. Conn is High King of Ireland, but his land turns to waste when he marries the wicked Bé Chuille, Bé Chuma, an unacceptable action for the king. H ...
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Trope (literature)
A literary trope is the use of figurative language, via word, phrase or an image, for artistic effect such as using a figure of speech. Keith and Lundburg describe a trope as, "a substitution of a word or phrase by a less literal word or phrase." The word ''trope'' has also come to be used for describing commonly recurring or overused literary and rhetorical devices, motifs or clichés in creative works. Literary tropes span almost every category of writing, such as poetry, film, plays, and video games. Origins The term ''trope'' derives from the Greek (''tropos''), "turn, direction, way", derived from the verb τρέπειν (''trepein''), "to turn, to direct, to alter, to change". Tropes and their classification were an important field in classical rhetoric. The study of tropes has been taken up again in modern criticism, especially in deconstruction. Tropological criticism (not to be confused with tropological reading, a type of biblical exegesis) is the historical study of ...
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Christian Eschatology
Christian eschatology, a major branch of study within Christian theology, deals with "last things". Such eschatology – the word derives from two Greek roots meaning "last" () and "study" (-) – involves the study of "end things", whether of the end of an individual life, of the end of the age, of the end of the world, or of the nature of the Kingdom of God. Broadly speaking, Christian eschatology focuses on the ultimate destiny of individual souls and of the entire created order, based primarily upon biblical texts within the Old and New Testaments. Christian eschatology looks to study and discuss matters such as death and the afterlife, Heaven and Hell, the Second Coming of Jesus, the resurrection of the dead, the rapture, the tribulation, millennialism, the end of the world, the Last Judgment, and the New Heaven and New Earth in the world to come. Eschatological passages appear in many places in the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments. Many extra-biblical exam ...
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