From Ritual to Romance

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Cosimo, Inc., 2007 M12 1 - 240 páginas
From Ritual to Romance is a 1920 landmark study of anthropology and folklore that examines the roots of the King Arthur-Holy Grail legends. Jessie Weston's revolutionary theory holds that most elements of the Grail story are actually the remnants of incredibly old fertility rites -- with the lance and the cup serving as sexual symbols. Drawing on James George Frazer's seminal works on folklore, magic, and religion, Weston seeks to make connections between the legend's early pagan elements and its later Christian influences, uniting the quest for fertility with the striving for mystical oneness with God. T.S. Elliot cited this work as a major influence for his famous epic poem, "The Waste Land." JESSIE LAIDLAY WESTON (1850-1928) was an independent scholar and folklorist who specialized in mediaeval Arthurian texts.

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CHAPTER I
1
CHAPTER II
12
The Freeing of the Waters
25
CHAPTER IV
34
Is it possible to establish chain of descent connecting
52
CHAPTER VI
65
CHAPTER VII
81
CHAPTER VIII
101
CHAPTER IX
113
CHAPTER X
137
CHAPTER XI
149
CHAPTER XII
164
CHAPTER XIII
175
CHAPTER XIV
189
Index pp 211217
211
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Página 204 - The Grail story is not du fond en comble the product of imagination, literary or popular. At its root lies the record, more or less distorted, of an ancient Ritual, having for its ultimate object the initiation into the secret of the sources of Life, physical and spiritual.
Página 189 - Probably we shall never know, but of this one thing we may be sure, the Grail is a living force, it will never die; it may indeed sink out of sight, and, for centuries even, disappear from the field of literature, but it will rise to the surface again, and become once more a theme of vital inspiration...
Página 183 - ... and reacting with fatal results upon the physical. We have already seen in the Naassene document that the Mystery ritual comprised a double initiation, the Lower, into the mysteries of generation, ie, of physical Life; the Higher, into the Spiritual Divine Life, where man is made one with God. Some years ago I offered the suggestion that the test for the primary initiation, that into the sources of physical life...
Página 187 - The Otherworld is not a myth, but a reality," Miss Weston explains, "and in all ages there have been souls who have been willing to brave the great adventure, and to risk all for the chance of bringing back with them such assurance of the future life.
Página 176 - Students of the Grail romances will remember that in many of the versions the hero - sometimes it is a heroine - meets with a strange and terrifying adventure in a mysterious Chapel, an adventure which, we are given to understand, is fraught with extreme peril to life. The details vary; sometimes there is a Dead Body laid on the altar; sometimes a Black Hand extinguishes the tapers; there are strange and threatening voices, and the general impression is that this is an adventure in which supernatural,...
Página 188 - Grail stories, concludes that these stories "repose eventually," not upon a poet's imagination, but upon the ruins of an august and ancient ritual, a ritual which once claimed to be the accredited guardian of the deepest secrets of life."30 Yet she supposes that certain historical incidents have crept into these narratives.
Página 188 - ... Weston's book From Ritual to Romance which is concerned with Romance literature and the origin of the Grail. At one point she connects the Templars with pagan priests in Rome, known as the Salii, and later has this to say about the Templars and their possible connection with surviving pagan mysteries: Had they, when in the East, come into touch with a survival of the Naassene, or some kindred sect? It seems exceedingly probable. If it were so we could understand at once the puzzling connection...
Página 204 - Mystery' form it was freely utilized for the imparting of high spiritual teaching concerning the relation of Man to the Divine Source of his being, and the possibility of a sensible union between Man, and God.
Página 188 - The Grail romances repose eventually, not upon a poet's imagination, but upon the ruins of an august and ancient ritual, a ritual which once claimed to be the accredited guardian of the deepest secrets of Life. Driven from its high estate by the relentless force of religious evolution — for after all, Adonis, Attis, and their congeners were but the 'half-gods' who must needs yield place when 'the Gods' themselves arrive — it yet lingered on; openly, in Folk practice, in Fast and Feast, whereby...

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