SOURCE: Thompson, Raymond H. “The Grail in Modern Fiction: Sacred Symbol in a Secular Age.” In The Grail: A Casebook, edited by Dhira B. Mahoney, pp. 545-60. New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 2000.

In the following essay, Thompson discusses the use of the Grail motif in modern fiction, including a brief analysis of four twentieth-century novels.

As in medieval accounts, modern treatments of the Grail legend offer two distinct ranges of possibility: it may be more or less Christian, and it may be more or less linked to Arthur's realm. At its first appearance in the Perceval of Chrétien de Troyes, the Grail is undoubtedly mysterious, but not particularly holy. It was left to Robert de Boron to identify it as the vessel of the Last Supper used by Joseph of Arimathea to catch Christ's blood after the Crucifixion. To the voluminous medieval romances on the Grail, later...