Grail Quest revisited

Intended as the first of a four-part cycle of versified Arthurian stories titled Merlin’s Isle, Galahad and the Grail is an accessible and swashbuckling account of the Knights of the Round Table’s search for the Holy Grail to restore the blighted Wasteland to its previous fecundity.

Guite’s confidence in his voice and style is key to the charm of the poem, refreshing the centuries-old story while drawing inspiration from Tolkien and Tennyson. The vast expansion of the character of Dindrane, the sister of Sir Bors, brings a bold female perspective which excellently complements the traditional masculine chivalry of the source material. The introduction of the river Naiads similarly reveals Guite’s skill at moving soliloquies, while also adding an ecological urgency fitting to our climate-crisis darkened age. The Naiad of the Wasteland’s plea, “stand[ing] alone at last on deserts sand – a wilderness of bones”, chillingly reflects our own urban deserts and nature-depleted landscapes. Yet, in contrast, the episode “Galahad and the Naiad” about an industrialist knight feels a little strained. This ecological message will hopefully be perfected in later volumes.

Where the poem truly shines is in its representation of the Christian heart of the Arthurian legends: its detailed and luxuriant descriptions of religious rites hang heavy with their significance for the deeply pious knights. The appearances of the Grail relics similarly shimmer with an ineffable potency which pauses all action and elevates the narrative from worldly concerns: as the songs of Heaven “ravished every person there, lifted their hearts they knew not where”, the reader too cannot help but feel this bliss. The Grail knights are not merely on a romp in Guite’s text – they quest with the noblest of purposes. 

The pace and rhythm of the poetry both maintain a refreshing briskness, and Guite’s strict yet varying rhyme and metre allows the text to expand and contract with the action, focussing the poem like a camera lens.The unusual choice of writing a plot-driven narrative in ballad form in an age where the default forms are free verse and prose pays homage to previous Arthurian writers and effectively conveys the atmosphere of the Grail Quest. Guite’s focus is undoubtedly on the art of storytelling and accessibility, which means that the poem will appeal to readers who are gripped by the narrative more than to those who would want to linger over the complexity of the verse.

Occasionally there are some clever mirroring of rhymes to highlight two disparate aspects of the text, but the poem’s power would have been tremendous if Guite combined his skill at structuring and storytelling with that of fine-grain precision: the narrative poetry of Keats and Spenser for example both draw upon the same sources as Guite, yet they layer their language and form to spark myriad interpretations. Overall, Galahad and the Grail is a wonderfully evocative text with themes and messages that speak to us today – Guite is an excellent storyteller who could introduce the unadulterated message of the medieval legends to generations to come.