A Glastonbury Romance - The Grail and Mysticism in The Novel

The Grail and Mysticism in The Novel

The Grail in the novel is depicted not only in its original, Christian guise, but is mixed in with local folklore and Celtic mythology. During the early 20th century much scholarly work (and conventional wisdom) focused on finding an origin for the Grail of medieval romance in earlier Celtic myth. The novel also plays up the associations between Glastonbury and King Arthur's burial place of the island of Avalon, which have been present since the 20th century. At the novel's end, much of the city is flooded, in reference to the myth that held Glastonbury to be the original Avalon. The novel closes with a drowning John Geard looking to Glastonbury Tor (itself referred to repeatedly as the domain of the mythic Welsh spirit Gwyn-ap-Nudd) in hopes of seeing the Grail, followed by a short passage comparing the tower of the Tor and the Glastonbury Abbey to the persistence of the mythic and mystic in everyday life.

The novel also contains numerous examples of anthropomorphisation, reflecting Powys' belief that even inanimate objects possessed soul. The sun, for example, is described as an enemy to the vicar Mat Dekker, while different trees are described as listening in to an early liaison between Mary and John Crow. Other passages refer to the spiritual extension of characters' will existing outside their bodies, particularly in the chapter "Nature Seems Dead" where a number of sleeping characters' 'spirits' move about the town. The novel also repeatedly refers to a Manichean dualism in the nature of the First Cause, the closest equivalent to a Judeo-Christian God in the novel, though this dualism is seen as tied in with all of existence and is seen most strongly in the character of Owen Evans. These traits are found perhaps more strongly in A Glastonbury Romance than any of Powys' other novels, though his works were usually imbued with the author's own Celtic-based mystic beliefs described in detail in his personal letters and Autobiography.