Arthurian Romances [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION In France from about the middle of the twelfth century the new genre of romance came to challenge the heroic epic, or chanson de geste, as the favourite form of literary entertainment among the aristocracy of the northern courts. The romances were long tales of chivalric and sentimental adventure presented in verse until the fashion shifted to prose in the following century. With a style less aggressively terse and formulaic than the chansons de geste, they were not composed, like them, for dramatic recitation by jongleurs, but to be read, either privately by the educated or more often, no doubt, aloud to a listening group. Some took their themes from Classical Antiquity—stories of Aeneas, or of Thebes or Troy; others exploited Greco-Byzantine material and occasionally more recent history; but from an early date it was the Matter of Britain that gripped the imagination of writers and public alike: legends of Tristan, of King Arthur and his knights, of the marvels of the Celtic world. Chrétien de Troyes may not have been the progenitor of Arthurian romance, but he is usually thought of as at least its adoptive father. As such he has a rightful place among the greatest and most influential figures of world literature. Yet he is also one of the most enigmatic. To begin with, although he was much revered, probably in his own day and certainly by his successors, we know virtually nothing of his life. It is assumed from his dedication of Lancelot to Marie, Countess of Champagne, that in the 1170s he had some connection with her court at Troyes, the town with which he had associated his own name in the prologue of Erec et Enide. On the other hand, the last of his acknowledged romances, the unfinished Conte du Graal or Perceval, he was to offer to Philip of Alsace, Count of Flanders. Does this mean that by about 1182 Chrétien had left Marie's entourage to work for another patron? It is possible, though not certain, for Philip was in close touch with the house of Champagne, and a commission from him does not necessarily imply a change of residence on the poet's part^ In any case, this was an undertaking that Chrétien never brought to fruition, since, if we are to believe a continuator, it was death that took the pen prematurely from his hand. He was fortunate during his lifetime to have worked for two patrons of such quality and distinction. Marie, great-granddaughter