Parzival (unabridged)

Audio Sample

Wolfram von Eschenbach

Parzival

Read by Leighton Pugh

unabridged

The greatest of all the medieval romances about the Holy Grail, Parzival was written in the early 13th century. The narrative describes the quest of the Arthurian knight, Parzival, for the Holy Grail. His journey is filled with incident, from tournaments and sieges to chivalrous deeds and displays of true love. The poem influenced several later works, most notably Richard Wagner’s opera of the same name and Umberto Eco’s Baudolino. The text used in this recording is Cyril Edwards’s modern prose translation.

  • Running Time: 18 h 14 m

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    More product details
    Digital ISBN:978-1-78198-340-9
    Cat. no.:NA0478
    Produced by:Neil Rosser
    Edited by:Ross Burman
    Text:Text © 2004 Cyril Edwards
    Translated by:Cyril Edwards
    BISAC:POE018000
    BIC:DCF
    Released:July 21
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Reviews

This prose translation of one of the earliest of the Grail stories is a corker of a medieval romance, and narrator Leighton Pugh makes the most of its tension and occasional flashes of humour and emotion. Listeners should be prepared for some surprises. The Grail itself, for example, is a stone, not a cup, and has nothing to do with Jesus. By the time the legends reached Malory, who wrote Le Morte d’Arthur, they had evolved considerably. Pugh uses a range of voices and accents to differentiate characters, but the text gives him little help; not until the Renaissance, for the most part, did the people in stories start becoming more than symbols. The one exception here is Eschenbach (author), who pops in occasionally as himself.

D.M.H., AudioFile


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