He composed the following operas: Sardanapale (1867), Le Dernier jour de Pompei (1869), Dimitri (1876), La Reine Berthe (1878), Le Chevalier Jean (1885), Lancelot (1900).
To the great majority of English readers the name of no knight of King Arthur's court -is so familiar as is that of Sir Lancelot.
Lancelot, however, is not an original member of the cycle, and the development of his story is still a source of considerable perplexity to the critic.
Briefly summarized, the outline of his career, as given in the German Lanzelet and the French prose Lancelot, is as follows: Lancelot was the only child of King Ban of Benoic and his queen Helaine.
While yet an infant, his father was driven from his kingdom, either by a revolt of his subjects, caused by his own harshness (Lanzelet), or by the action of his enemy Claudas de la Deserte (Lancelot).
In the prose Lancelot his education is complete, he knows his name and parentage, though for some unexplained reason he keeps both secret, and he goes with a fitting escort and equipment to Arthur's court to demand knighthood.
In the prose version, Lancelot, from his first appearance at court, conceives a passion for the queen, who is very considerably his senior, his birth taking place some time after her marriage to Arthur.
Surprised together, Lancelot escapes, and the queen is condemned to be burnt alive.
As the sentence is about to be carried into execution Lancelot and his kinsmen come to her rescue, but in the fight that ensues many of Arthur's knights, including three of Gawain's brothers, are slain.
Thus converted into an enemy, Gawain urges his uncle to make war on Lancelot, and there follows a desperate struggle between Arthur and the race of Ban.
This is interrupted by the tidings of Mordred's treachery, and Lancelot, taking no part in the last fatal conflict, outlives both king and queen, and the downfall of the Round Table.
In the pseudo-chronicles, the Historia of Geoffrey and the translations by Wace and Layamon, Lancelot does not appear at all; the queen's lover, whose guilty passion is fully returned, is Mordred.
Chretien de Troyes' treatment of him is contradictory; in the Erec, his earliest extant poem, Lancelot's name appears as third on the list of the knights of Arthur's court.
The subject of the poem is the rescue of the queen from her abductor Meleagant; and what makes the matter more perplexing is that Chretien handles the situation as one with which his hearers are already familiar; it is Lancelot, and not Arthur or another, to whom the office of rescuer naturally belongs.
After this it is surprising to find that in his next poem, Le Chevalier au Lion, Lancelot is once, and only once, casually referred to, and that in a passing reference to his rescue of the queen.
In the continuations added at various times to Chretien's unfinished work the role assigned to Lancelot is equally modest.
The story of the loves of Lancelot and Guenevere, as related by Chretien, has about it nothing spontaneous and genuine; in no way can it be compared with the story of Tristan and Iseult.
Lancelot, already popular hero of a tale in which an adventure parallel to that of the Charrette figured prominently, was pressed into the service, Modred, Guenevere's earlier lover, being too unsympathetic a character; moreover, Modred was required for the final role of traitor.
Here we must distinguish between the Lancelot proper and the LancelotGuenevere versions; so far as the latter are concerned, we cannot get behind the version of Chretien, - nowhere, prior to the composition of the Chevalier de la Charrette is there any evidence of the existence of such a story.
The trend of modern critical opinion is towards accepting Map as the author of a Lancelot romance, which formed the basis for later developments, and there is a growing tendency to identify this hypothetical original Lancelot with the source of the German Lanzelet.
To the student of the original texts Lancelot is an infinitely less interesting hero than Gawain, Perceval or Tristan, each of whom possesses a well-marked personality, and is the centre of what we may call individual adventures.
Saving and excepting the incident of his being stolen and brought up by a water-fairy (from a Lai relating which adventure the whole story probably started), there is absolutely nothing in Lancelot's character or career to distinguish him from any other romantic hero of the period.
The language of the prose Lancelot is good, easy and graceful, but the adventures lack originality and interest, and the situations repeat themselves in a most wearisome manner.
The Lancelot story, in its rise and development, belongs exclusively to the later stage of Arthurian romance; it was a story for the court, not for the folk, and it lacks alike the dramatic force and human appeal of the genuine "popular" tale.
The prose Lancelot was frequently printed; J.
The Books devoted by Malory to Lancelot are also drawn from this latter section of the romance; there is no sign that the English translator had any of the earlier part before him.
Unfortunately, Dr Sommer, in his study on the Sources of Malory, omitted to consult these texts, with the result that the sections dealing with Lancelot and Queste urgently require revision.
A Dutch version of a short episodic poem, Lancelot et le cerf au pied blanc will be found in M.
Lancelot Blackburne, 1724-1743 78.
112, a combination of the Lancelot and the Tristan, also couples his name with that of Robert de Borron.
Now this incident of the "Three Days' Tournament" is found alike in the prose Lancelot and in the German Lanzelet, this latter translated from a French poem which, in 1194, was in the possession of Hugo de Morville.
Chretien de Troyes, in his Cligds (the date of which falls somewhere in the decade 1160-1170), knew and utilized the story of the "Three Days' Tournament," and moreover makes Lancelot take part in it.
Taking all the evidence into consideration it seems more probable that Map had, at a comparatively early date, before he became so important an official, composed a poem on the subject of Lancelot, which was the direct source of the German version, and which Chretien also knew and followed.
The form in which certain of the references to him are couched favours the above view; the compiler of Guiron le Cortois says in his prologue that "maistre Gautier Map qui fu clers au roi Henrydevisa cil l'estoire de monseigneur Lancelot du Lac, que d'autre chose ne parla it mie gramment en son livre"; and in another place he refers to Map, "qui fit lou pro pre livre de monsoingnour Lancelot dou Lac."
For discussion of his authorship of the Lancelot cf.
See also under LANCELOT.
Lancelot Andrewes >>
Lancelot, son of Ban king of Brittany, a creation of chivalrous romance, who only appears in Arthurian literature under French influence, known chiefly from his amour with Guinevere, perhaps in imitation of the story of Tristan and Iseult.
Gawain (Welwain, Welsh Gwalchmai), Arthur's nephew, who in medieval romance remains the type of knightly courage and chivalry, until his character is degraded in order to exalt that of Lancelot.
This distinguishes the story from that of Lancelot, with which some modern scholars have been inclined to identify it; for Lancelot's parentage is never in doubt, he is fis du roi.
Later, however, stories which certainly derive from an early non-Grail tradition are introduced, and there are references which imply a knowledge of the prose Lancelot and of Chretien's poem.
It produced in England the Roman du Saint Graal and the Roman de Merlin, both from the pen of Robert de Borron; the Roman de Lancelot; the Roman de Tristan, which is attributed to a fictitious Lucas de Gast.
in the Merlin proper, Gawain is a dominant personality, his feats rivalling in importance those ascribed to Arthur, but in the later forms such as the Merlin continuations, the Tristan, and the final Lancelot compilation, his character and position have undergone a complete change, he is represented as cruel, cowardly and treacherous, and of indifferent moral character.
When the source of the name was forgotten its meaning was not unnaturally misinterpreted, and gained for Gawain the reputation of a facile morality, which was exaggerated by the pious compilers of the later Grail romances into persistent and aggravated wrong-doing; at the same time it is to be noted that Gawain is never like Tristan and Lancelot, the hero of an illicit connexion maintained under circumstances of falsehood and treachery.
LANCELOT ANDREWES (1555-1626), English divine, was born in 1 555 in London.
Lancelot was sent to the Cooper's free school, Ratcliff, in the parish of Stepney, and then to the Merchant Taylors' school under Richard Mulcaster.
Frere, Lancelot Andrewes as a Representative of Anglican Principles (1898; Church Hist.
Besides the poems, we possess the prose Tristan, an enormous compilation, akin to the prose Lancelot, where the original story, though still to be traced, is obscured by a mass of later Arthurian adventures.
The interest here centres in the rivalry between Tristan and Lancelot, alike as knights and lovers, and in the later redaction, ascribed to Helie de Borron, the story is spun out to an interminable length.
The text-books prepared for them by Lancelot included Royal.
Dr Lancelot Andrewes, dean of Westminster.
for Early English Text Society), gives an expanded account of the passing of Arthur; in the French prose form it is now always found incorporated with the Lancelot, of which it forms the concluding section.
Among his publications are Characters and Characteristics of William Law (1893); Bunyan Characters (3 vols., 1894); Samuel Rutherford (1894); An Appreciation of Jacob Behmen (1895) Lancelot Andrewes and his Private Devotions (1895); Bible Characters (7 vols., 1897); Santa Teresa (1897); Father John of Cronstadt (1898); An Appreciation of Browne's Religio Medici (1898); Cardinal Newman, An Appreciation (1901).
Lancelot Malocello, a Genoese, in 1270 reached at least as far as the Canaries.
The bachelor and the banneret were both equally knights, only the one was of greater distinction and authority 3 Du Cange, Dissertation, xxi., and Lancelot du Lac, among other romances.
The Welsh triads know no fewer than three Gwenhwyfars; Giraldus Cambrensis, relating the discovery of the royal tombs at Glastonbury, speaks of the body found as that of Arthur's second wife; the prose Merlin gives Guenevere a bastard half-sister of the same name, who strongly resembles her; and the Lancelot relates how this lady, trading on the likeness, persuaded Arthur that she was the true daughter of Leodegrance, and the queen the bastard interloper.
To the majority of English readers Guenevere is best known in connexion with her liaison with Lancelot, a story which, in the hands of Malory and Tennyson, has assumed a form widely different from the original conception, and at once more picturesque and more convincing.
In the French romances Lancelot is a late addition to the Arthurian cycle, his birth is not recorded till long after the marriage of Arthur and Guenevere, and he is at least twenty years the junior of the queen.
See Studies on the Arthurian Legend by Professor Rhys; The Legend of Sir Lancelot, Grimm Library, xii., .Jessie L.
LANCILOTO ("MALOCELLO LANZAROTE, the ` Lancelot Maloisiel ' of the French"), leader of the first of modern European oceanic enterprises.
Its language is an artificial blend of northern and southern (Chaucerian) forms, of the type shown in Lancelot of the Laik and the Quair of Jelusy.
The tales of Lancelot and Tristram, the lives of the troubadours and the Wachtlieder of the minnesingers, sufficiently prove with what sensual freedom a knight loved the lady whom custom and art made him profess to worship as a saint.
Another account is given in the prose Lancelot, but here Gawain has been deposed from his post as first hero of the court, and, as is to be expected from the treatment meted out to him in this romance, the visit ends in his complete discomfiture.
- The Quete du Saint Graal, the only romance of which Galahad is the hero, is dependent on and a completion of the Lancelot development of the Arthurian cycle.
Lancelot, as lover of Guinevere, could not be permitted to achieve so spiritual an emprise, yet as leading knight of Arthur's court it was impossible to allow him to be surpassed by another.
Hence the invention of Galahad, son to Lancelot by the Grail king's daughter; predestined by his lineage to achieve the quest, foredoomed, the quest achieved, to vanish, a sacrifice to his father's fame, which, enhanced by connexion with the Grailwinner, could not risk eclipse by his presence.
Introductory to the Galahad quest, and dealing only with the early history, is the Grand Saint Graal, a work of interminable length, based upon the Joseph of Arimathea, which has undergone numerous revisions and amplifications: its precise relation to the Lancelot, with which it has now much matter in common, is not easy to determine.
The old and new buildings are separated by an ancient alleyway which has reopened as a glazed street called Lancelot's Link.
Of our own mares, Martine's Maid by Its Without Doubt had a very nice colt by Hot Rumor called Brendonhill Lancelot.
Outside the academic environment, Lancelot has been a VSO volunteer in Thailand, a contact karate instructor, and a school governor.
LANCELOT (Lancelot du Lac, or Lancelot of the Lake), a famous figure in the Arthurian cycle of romances.
In the prose Lancelot, on the other hand, the Lake is but a mirage, and the Lady's court does not lack its complement of gallant knights; moreover the boy has the companionship of his cousins, Lionel and Bohort, who, like himself, have been driven from their kingdom by Claudas.
When he reaches the customary age (which appears to be fif teen), the young Lancelot, suitably equipped, is sent out into the world.
In Le Chevalier de la Charrette, however, which followed Cliges, we find Lancelot alike as leading knight of the court and lover of the queen, in fact, precisely in the position he occupies in the prose romance, where, indeed, the section dealing with this adventure is, as Gaston Paris clearly proved, an almost literal adaptation of Chretien's poem.
Welsh tradition does not know him; early Italian records, which have preserved the names of Arthur and Gawain, have no reference to Lancelot; among the group of Arthurian knights figured on the architrave of the north doorway of Modena cathedral (a work of the 12th century) he finds no place; the real cause for his apparently sudden and triumphant rise to popularity is extremely difficult to determine.
The authorship of the Lancelot proper, on the other hand, is invariably ascribed to Walter Map (see MAP), the chancellor of Henry II., but so also are the majority of the Arthurian prose Romances.
Jonckbloet's volume, and a discussion of this and other Lancelot poems, by Gaston Paris, is contained in vol.
Weston, The Legend of Sir Lancelot du Lac (Grimm Library, vol.
When we come to Elizabethan times, we possess a few examples of the sermons of the "judicious" Hooker (1 554 - a 600); Henry Smith (1550-1591) was styled "the prime preacher of the nation"; and Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), whose sermons were posthumously printed at the command of James in 1628, dazzled his contemporaries by the brilliancy of his euphemism; Andrewes was called "the star of preachers."
He is invariably cited as the author of the Lancelot proper (consisting of two parts), the Queste and the Mort Artus, all three of which are now generally found in one manuscript under the title of Lancelot.
337 (fonds Francais), refers throughout to Map as authority; and the enormous Lancelot codex, B.
Now only during the early part of his career could Map fairly be referred to as simple "clers au roi Henry," and both extracts emphasize the fact that his work dealt, almost exclusively, with Lancelot.
So Merlin preserves his diabolic origin; Arthur his mystic coming and his mystic passing; while Gawain, and after him Lancelot, journey across the river, as the Irish hero Bran had done before them to the island of fair women - the Celtic vision of the realm of death.
(See Arthur, Merlin, Perceval, Tristan, Lancelot, Gawain.) Heroes of Romance.
The first Latin grammar written in French was that of Pere de Condren of the Oratoire (c. 1642), which was followed by the Port-Royal Mdthode latine of Claude Lancelot (1644), and by the grammar composed by Bossuet for the dauphin, and also used by Fenelon for the instruction of the duc de Bourgogne.
The truth is probably that the tradition of his wife's adultery and treachery was a genuine part of the Arthurian story, which, neglected for a time, was brought again into prominence by the social conditions of the courts for which the later romances were composed; and it is in this later and conventionalized form that the tale has become familiar to us (see also Lancelot).
of Arthurian Romances (Nutt), gives a translation of the Bleheris, Diu Crone and Prose Lancelot visits.
In its literary form the cycle falls into three groups: - pseudohistoric: the Histories of Nennius and Geoffrey, the Brut of Wace and Layamon (see Arthur); poetic: the works of Chretien de Troyes, Thomas, Raoul de Houdenc and others (see Gawain, Perceval, Tristan, and the writers named above); prose: the largest and most important group (see Grail, Lancelot, Merlin, Tristan).
Join Jason, Sir Lancelot, the Pharaoh, Hiawatha or Rama on a spellbinding adventure across five locations.
What appears the most probable solution is that which regards Lancelot as the hero of an independent and widely diffused folk-tale, which, owing to certain special circumstances, was brought into contact with, and incorporated in, the Arthurian tradition.
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