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
Ingvil Brügger Budal (Western Norway University of Applied Sciences): ‘Looking for Arthurian Motifs in the Medieval Norwegian Ballads’
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 - 4:15pm - 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) (Zoom): ‘Some Preliminary Thoughts on the Epistemological Status of Medieval Welsh and Irish “translations”’
Claudia Zimmermann (University of Marburg) (Zoom) : 'Apples and oranges or peas in a pod? – A method for measuring the relative distance between translations and their source texts'
4:30-5:30 Round Table (Zoom): ‘Rethinking Adaptation in Medieval Literatures: Epistemological Challenges and Theoretical Perspectives’
Malo Adeux (Université de Bretagne Occidentale (UBO / University of Wester Brittany, Brest), Manon Metzger (Independent Scholar and P.J.C.Field Visiting Fellow, Centre for Arthurian Studies, Bangor University); Aude Martin (University of Strasbourg)
10:15 - 12:15 - Session 4: Translation and Adaptation Strategies: the Treatment of the Material (Irish and Welsh Sources)
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
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’
Discussion, conclusion and announcements
12:15 Lunch
Visit of the Centre for Arthurian Studies