trait of the central personage, care was taken to remove every trait that implied failure or disappointment; in Galahad was to be exhibited only the shining forth of spiritual glory manifest in the Christ of whom he is avowedly a copy. The character of the hero, apparently chivalric, is in reality ecclesiastical, and the narrative an eulogium, under the form of the novel, of monasticism and especially of celibacy.
It may be doubted how far such manner of representation was the expression of individual conviction, how far of conscious art. The Queste was designed as one volume of a fashionable romance, of which other volumes were intended to possess sentimental attraction; such inconsistency in no wise disturbed the author, who was not incommoded by the knowledge that his pious construction depended on a discreditable intrigue.
Respecting the characteristics of the story, the present writer has observed, in the Introduction of a recent work: "The narrative exhibits no development of personality, no characteristic portraiture; having its chief literary merit in an agreeable style, it proceeds with the cold indifference of a writer who is conscious that his tale is an allegory. The outward world can scarce be said to exist; we are in the realm of religious ideas, supernatural forces of light and darkness, of whose struggle the visible universe is merely a symbol. Accepting this conception, the story is devoid of depth; in this drama the actors are as mechanical as the properties; the reader asks himself whether the creator of the play aimed at any end higher than the production of a fashionable novel. If such was his purpose, the task was a success. The prose style permitted the supposition, encouraged by the tenor of the narrative, that it was entitled to the credit of history; incorporation with the adventures of Lancelot favored its authority; while, in return, the attraction of the new romance extended the influence of a body of fiction capable equally of gratifying sentimental taste and appealing to religious austerity. In such manner, and through popular preference for masses over details, for myth above character, the fame of Galahad came to supersede that of the more human Perceval."
It has been especially in modern English literature that the romance has exercised influence. This effect has been attained in virtue of the enthusiasm of Malory, in whose abstract the tale assumed a freshness not to be found in his French original, and from whom the narrative passed into the hands of Tennyson, in whose beautiful lines it came to represent quite a different order of ethical ideas.
