Name: ANA CRISTINA ALVARENGA DE SOUZA
Type: MSc dissertation
Publication date: 08/07/2019
Examining board:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| FERNANDA SCOPEL FALCÃO | Internal Examiner * |
Summary: ABSTRACT
It studies the occurrence of the treason in the anonymous chivalry novel The Quest for
the Holy Grail and it examines this criminal action made by the idealized knights of the
Arthurian court, mainly by Galvam, related to the concept of villainy. Using different
approaches, it is based on Heitor Megale, Lenia Márcia Mongelli, Fanni Bogdanow,
Irene Freire Nunes and Ana Sofia Laranjinhas critical and literary works; on Jean Flori,
Jacques Le Goff, Franco Cardini, Adriana Zierers historiographical studies, and on
Robert I. Burns, Francisco López Estrada, María Tereza López García-Berdoy and
Jerry R. Craddocks legal researches. According to these contributions, it examines
the influence of moral treatises and legal codes and the connection between State,
Church and Chivalric Order in the fictional representation of models of behavior in the
narrative. Considering the christian doctrinal aspect of the novel in the archaic
Portuguese, it is based on the Medieval legal code Las siete Partidas, by Alfonso X,
synthesis of the codes of the time, to ponder about the civil, religious and moral
implications of the commitment of the disloyalty by a knight, whom is represented as a
heroic and exemplary man, but antagonistically weakened by his profane and morally
ambiguous attitudes. In this regard, it is observed that Galvam, as a distorted knight,
is dominated by his vices and deliberately commits crimes, which makes him a traitor
and a villain in the narrative, with a large involvement in the failure of Arthurs reign.
Keywords: Medieval Portuguese narrative The Quest for the Holy Grail. Medieval
Chivalry Literary subject. Treason Literary subject. Villainy Literary subject.
Galvam Literary character.
