Competing for the Grail

In Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, AD 1190, the grail makes its second appearance in world literature. Wolfram tells the tales in sixteen books of the world-traveling knight Gahmuret, the despondent queen Herzeloyde, the vainglorious Gawain, the tactless Arthur and his flawed court, the beautiful Condwiramurs, the hermit Trevrizent, and of course Parzival the bumbling bubele who was never taught his own name, much less how to be a good Christian knight. Parzival sets out on aventiǔre and along the way learns his name, his heritage, and how to live in the courtly world. He makes it from a secluded childhood in the forest to finding the grail at last. He achieves this by reconciling the Arthurian earth-based society with the spiritual grail society or, more to the point, by asking the wounded grail keeper Anfortas a magical question: "Uncle, what ails you?"

In the lecture series Where There Was No Way comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell calls Wolfram's romance the greatest work of Western civilization because it perfectly demonstrates the monomyth. The monomyth is found in almost every popular European and American epic from The Odyssey to Star Wars. But what is the grail? You can believe the Holy Blood, Holy Grail hoax of 1982, one of the coolest pranks in the twentieth century and the story bootlegged by Dan Brown in 2003. In fact, there are countless "Parzival Scholars," and each has a different explanation for what the grail symbolizes.

But what is it, as in, what is the actual thing, the object? In Parzival the grail is simply a stone. It gives those gathered around it plenty to eat and assures its protector of the highest title on Earth - along with a nifty castle that no one can find unless they chat it up with the Fisher King or let their horse wander off the path… Keep in mind we are talking about the grail, or graal in Middle High German, not the holy grail. It's called holy much later in gratuitous nineteenth century European works. It first became a cup of sorts in the thirteenth century. That shape is how the legacy of the grail continues today; just look at the trophies from some soccer competitions:



Perhaps the best grail-like trophy is for the winner of the German Bundesliga, because in the grail's first-ever appearance in any romance, Chretien de Troyes's Perçeval (AD 1180), the grail is simply a dish:



If you happen to know of a trophy that is in the shape of a stone, please let me know!

Das Runde auf dem Eckigen

Look! The architectural representation of this blog:


Notice the names and busts of Lessing and Goethe (further to the right was the Austrian playwright Grillparzer). On top, a massive soccer ball. This is the Wiener Burgtheater. I took this photo from the Fan Zone in Vienna (June 12, 2008) during the ongoing Eurocup tournament.

Gorzow Wielkopolski or Bust

In Christa Wolf's 1983 Kassandra, the Trojan War is retold slightly differently. In her version, Paris fails to steal Helen, but the royal family pretends that Paris succeeded, a circumstance the Greeks are happy to play along with because it gives them a pretense to attack Troy for its gold. The pre-war has started; Kassandra witnesses the slow disappearance of matriarchal structures: the queen loses influence in politics and is banned from meetings because "Krieg ist keine Frauensache mehr" (War is no longer a woman-thing). Kassandra comes to understand that her father is weak and allowed his kingdom to slip from the relative freedom of a society at the intersection of matriarchy and patriarchy into a police state.

We are in the pre-war of the Eurocup 2008. Is it a patriarchal police state? Not at all, but countless suits-and-ties do crowd the mega sports broadcasts and remind us at least visually that this isn't Frauensache. I am on my way to Poland, currently on a layover in North London, and I've already read my fair share of headlines on upcoming international "battles" and the inevitable proclamations by every guy in a Camdentown bar that "Spain will win this year!" FYI, Before every major tournament people always say Spain will win and they don't.

Why am I off to Poland? One of Saturday night's two matches is Poland versus Germany and I don't want to miss the public viewings and the crowds for that one. I love being a neutral observer while fans watch great matches. More poignantly for this blog, I'll watch the game from the town of Gorzow Wielkopolski. That's the birthplace of Christa Wolf, my favorite author from communist East Germany. When she was born it was a bilingual town, known as Landsberg by German speakers. It will be great to visit her normally monotonous birthplace on such a celebratory night. As for the Eurocup representing a patriarchal war, the good news is that tournaments between international teams (nations as opposed to clubs) draw the most mixed gender crowds of any type of soccer audience.

On that note, Wolf's Kassandra isn't all humdrum pessimism, she does put forward a matriarchal/patriarchal compromise in Kassandra's genuine relationship with Aineias. He is her "elixir of life." Two individuals predestined for an intimate, reciprocal relationship of equals. Consequently, their love is not a relationship of domination. Read the novel to learn how they do.