The Project
The project, whose working languages are French and English, focuses on the dissemination and reception of Old French Grail romances in medieval Celtic and Scandinavian language communities, with a strong focus on methodological and epistemological issues. The first colloquium, held in Rouen in November 2024, focused on translations/adaptations of Chrétien de Troyes’s late-twelfth-century verse romance Le Conte du Graal. The forthcoming colloquium represents the UK strand of the project and will focus on texts derived from two early-thirteenth-century prose romances, La Quête du Saint Graal and Perlesvaus, including Welsh, Irish and English adaptations.
Programme
10am: Welcome – Raluca Radulescu (Prof. and Director of the Centre for Arthurian Studies, Bangor University)
10:15 - Introduction
- Summary of the Rouen Conference (Grail romances in Verse: the Conte du Graal tradition and its Continuations) – Hélène Tétrel, Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan and Hélène Bouget
- Presentation of the Bangor Conference (Grail romances in prose)
10:45am - 12:15pm - Session 1 Recycling and Absence: Problematic transmission of the Grail romances in Iceland 10:45-12
Ingvil Brügger Budal (Western Norway University of Applied Sciences): À la recherche des motifs inclus (paper delivered in French)
Asdís Rosa Magnusdottír (University of Iceland) and Hélène Tétrel (University of Rouen Normandy): ‘The Grail in Iceland: an Isolated Literary Tradition?’
12:15pm -1:15pm - Lunch
1:15pm - 2:45pm - Session 2: The transmission of the Prose Grail Romances in Modern Translations and Editions: an Epistemological Assessment
Hélène Bouget (Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest, CRBC): ‘La Queste del Saint Graal, from medieval manuscripts to modern editions and translations. What tools can be used to study the transmission of texts’
Raluca Radulescu (Bangor University, Wales): ‘Quests for the Holy Grail: Lost and Found in English Translations’’
2:45pm - 3pm - Coffee break
3pm - 5:15pm - Session 3 Translating the Prose Grail Romances in the Middle Ages: How do We Compare the Texts with their Sources? Methodological and Epistemological Issues
Erich Poppe (University of Marburg) (video conference): ‘Some Preliminary Thoughts on the Epistemological Status of Medieval Welsh and Irish “translations”’
Claudia Zimmermann (University of Graz) (video conference) : « Apples and oranges or peas in a pod? – A method for measuring the relative distance between translations and their source texts »
Manon Metzger (Independent Scholar and P.J.C.Field Visiting Fellow, Centre for Arthurian Studies, Bangor University): “(…) the two can for the most part be compared sentence by sentence: ” the Epistemological Premises of the Irish Grail and its Late Adaptation
10am - Welcome
10:15 - 11:45 - Session 4: Translation and Adaptation Strategies: the Treatment of the Material (Irish and Welsh Sources)
Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan (Independent Scholar and External Board member of the Centre for Arthurian Studies, Bangor University): ‘The Welsh Afterlife of the Quête and Perlesvaus’
Maxim Fomin (University of Ulster) ‘Scribal tendencies in the adaptation of the Queste del Saint Graal in Ireland’
11:45 - 1 pm Lunch
1pm - 2:30pm - Round Table: ‘Rethinking Adaptation in Medieval Literatures: Epistemological Challenges and Theoretical Perspectives’: Malo Adeux (Université de Bretagne Occidentale (UBO / University of Wester Brittany, Brest), Manon Metzger, Aude Martin (University of Strasbourg)
2:30pm - Conclusion and announcements
2:45pm - Visit of the Centre for Arthurian Studies