The Holy Grail Imagination and Belief Author:Richard Barber Richard Barber traces the history of the legends surrounding the Holy Grail, beginning with Chrétien de Troyes's great romances of the twelfth century and the medieval Church's religious version of the secular ideal. He pursues the myths through Victorian obsessions and enthusiasms to the popular bestsellers of the late twentieth century th... more »at have embraced its mysteries. From Lancelot to Parsifal, chivalric romances to Wagner's Ring, T. S. Eliot to Monty Python, the Grail has fascinated and lured the Western imagination from beyond the reach of the ordinary world. "Barber … demonstrates a gift for lucid, lively prose and an ability to make highly complex developments—cutting across religion, literature and politics—both immediate and accessible. [This book] makes for engaging reading as both literary criticism and cultural history." —Michiko Kakutani, New York Times "What we need is a cool-headed guide through the Grail's long and curious history, and in Richard Barber's lucid, fair-minded, and wide-ranging book, we get it." —Richard Jenkyns, New Republic« less