Flore Verdon, . Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2022, 545 pp.

Enlightenment is promised by this volume’s three parts: the first on the “aspects lexicaux, historiques et symboliques” of “le royaume arthurien”; the second on that realm’s “fonctions narratives”; the third on its “dimension anthropologique et mythique” (pp. 41, 42). Part one hence directs us to place-names, theories of feudalism, sacred kingship; part two, the “polarités” of Arthur’s kingdom in twelfth-century narratives; part three, the provision of a “discours utopique” in a quest for “bonheur humain” as relating to (for example) “le banquet royal” or “souveraineté féminine” and so on.