Perceforest

Perceforest
Full titleLe Roman de Perceforest
Author(s)Anonymous
LanguageOld French (verse), Middle French (prose)
DateAround 1340
First printed editionLa Tres Elegante Delicieux Melliflue et Tres Plaisante Hystoire du Tres Noble Roy Perceforest (1528)
SourcesHistoria Regum Britanniae, Vulgate Cycle, others

Perceforest or Le Roman de Perceforest is an anonymous prose chivalric romance, written in French probably around 1340 with lyrical interludes of poetry, that describes a fictional origin of Great Britain and provides an original genesis of the Arthurian world. The lengthy (over one million words long) work in eight volumes takes its inspiration from the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, Orosius and Bede, the Lancelot-Grail cycle, the Alexander Romance genre, Roman historians, medieval travellers, and oral tradition.[1] Perceforest forms a late addition to the collection of narratives with loose connections both to the Arthurian Romance and the feats of Alexander the Great.

  1. ^ Nigel Bryant (translator), Perceforest: The Prehistory of King Arthur's Britain, Cambridge and Rochester: D.S. Brewer (Arthurian studies, 77), 2011, xxiii.