ALTERNATIVE INTERPRETATIONS OF IMAGINARY VISIONS IN LA QUESTE DEL SAINT GRAAL: BORS’ VISION OF THE WHITE AND THE BLACK BIRDS

As a mystical text, La Queste del Saint Graal abounds in events with ambiguous meanings which can only be deciphered by a person who understands God’s visions, namely a priest, a hermit or a nun. Some of these events are actually “visions”, which can differ in form, and the most common are those defined by Thomas Aquinas’ phrase: imaginarias visiones. The significance of these “imaginary visions” may often be multi-layered, and in La Queste the anticipation of their meaning creates the suspense which is part of the appeal of the story. However, the ambiguity of an interpretation might be disturbing and this is the case of Bors’ vision of the two birds, one white and one black, which is explained in two completely different ways. I will study this senefiance – which is the original Frenchterm used to designate these visions – in La Queste del Saint Graal and in Mallory’s text Le Morte Dartur, and I will try to ascertain the difference in the two presentations and the significance of these alterations.