Arthurian Romances

by Chretien de Troyes

  The love tradition of the southern French troubadours moved northward in the second third of the twelfth century as a result of political developments, especially the two marriages of Eleanor of Aquitaine, first to King Louis VII of France in 1137 and then in 1152 to the future Henry II of England. With her she brought a number of courtiers and poets who introduced the southern tradition of ‘courtly love’ into the more sober North. Her daughters, Marie de Champagne and Alis de Blois, were both important arbiters of taste and style like their more illustrious mother, and fostered literary activities of many kinds, in both Latin and the vernacular, in their central French courts.

  The very notion of ‘courtly love’ (or fin’amors) as it was practised and celebrated in medieval literature remains even today a complex and vexed question. As it is depicted in troubadour poetry, the Tristan story and Chrétien’s The Knight of the Cart, it is an adulterous passion between persons of high social rank, in which the lovers express their profoundest emotions in a highly charged and distinctly stylized language. Both lovers agonize over their condition, indulging in penetrating self-examination and reflections on the nature of love. Although the refinement of the language gives the love an ethereal quality it is sensual and non-Platonic in nature, and for his sufferings the lover hopes for and generally receives a frankly sexual recompense. This, at any rate, is love as it appears in The Knight of the Cart. But was such love actually practised in the courts of twelfth-century France? Here critics are loosely divided into two opposing camps: the realists, who believe that such an institution did exist in the Middle Ages and is faithfully reflected in the literature of the period; and the idealists, who believe that it is a post-Romantic critical construct and was, in the Middle Ages, at most a game to be taken lightly and ironically.

  In The Knight of the Cart, Lancelot seems to substitute a religion of love for the traditional Christian ethic, even going so far as to genuflect upon leaving Guinevere’s bedchamber. Yet nowhere is there any direct condemnation of his behaviour, either by the characters or the narrator. Realists see in Lancelot the epitome of the courtly lover. For them, Marie de Champagne was a leading proponent of the doctrine of fin’amors, which was practised extensively at her court. To illustrate and further this concept, she commissioned Andreas Capellanus to draw up the rules for love in his De arte honeste amnandi and her favourite poet, Chrétien, to compose a romance whose central theme was to be that of the perfect courtly-love relationship. But Chrétien never completed his romance, an indication perhaps that he was not in sympathy with the theme proposed to him by the Countess.

  Idealists agree that the subject matter of The Knight of the Cart did not appeal to Chrétien, but allege different reasons. Citing the fact that adultery was harshly condemned by the medieval Church, they argue that what we today call ‘courtly love’ would have been recognized as idolatrous and treasonable passion. Lancelot must be seen as a foolled on by his lust, rather than his reason, into ever more ridiculous and humiliating situations. The idea of Lancelot lost in thoughts of love and being unceremoniously unhorsed or duelling behind his back to keep Guinevere in view could only be seen as ludicrous.

  Most realists today will concede a degree of ironic humour in the portrayal of Lancelot, but contend that the question of morality is a moot one: the love is amoral, rather than immoral. Sensitive to the attacks of the idealists, they now downplay the importance of Andreas Capellanus, whose concept of ‘pure love’ has led many commentators astray, and stress the distinctions between periods and works. The love portrayed by Dante or in Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess is of another period and qualitatively different from that of the troubadours and trouvères. Indeed, love in the poems of the northern French trouvères is itself distinct from that of the troubadours. And love as it is portrayed in the other romances by Chrétien is different from that in The Knight of the Cart. In all his other romances he appears as an advocate for marriage and love within marriage, constructing Erec, Cligés and The Knight with the Lion around this theme, and showing in all the disadvantages of other types of relationships.

  Not only do Chrétien’s prologues give us invaluable information about the poet himself, they also tell us a great deal about how he viewed his role as artist. In the prologue to Erec, Chrétien tells us that he tret d’un conte d’avanture/une molt bele conjointure (‘from a tale of adventure/he draws a beautifully ordered composition’). This conjointure has been variously translated ‘arrangement’, ‘linking’, ‘coherent organization’, ‘internal unity’, etc., but always implies that Chrétien has moulded and organized materials that were only inchoate before he applied his artistry to them. Already in his first romance, and repeatedly in his later work, Chrétien shows himself to be conscious of his role as a literary artist, a ‘maker’ or ‘inventor’ who fashions and gives artistic expression to materials that have come to him from earlier sources.

  In speaking of un conte d’avanture in the singular and with the article, Chrétien implies that he conceived of his source as a single work, rather than as a collection of disparate themes or motifs. He goes on to inform us that other storytellers, the professional jongleurs who earn their living by performing such narrative poems before the public, were wont to depecier et corronpre (‘mangle and corrupt’) these tales. Chrétien, on the other hand, clearly implies that he has provided a coherent structure for his tale, a structure that most critics today agree is that of a triptych. Like the traditional triptych altarpiece, Chrétien’s Erec and Enide has a broad central panel flanked by two balanced side-panels. The first panel, which Chrétien refers to as li premiers vers (‘the first movement’, l. 1808), comprises ll. 27–1808 and weaves together the episodes of the Hunt of the White Stag and the Joust for the Sparrow-hawk. The final episode, known as the Joy of the Court, forms an analogous panel of approximately the same length as the first, ll. 5321–6912. The central panel of his triptych, ll. 1809–5320, is by far the largest and most important, covering the principal action of the poem.

  Erec, like the other romances that followed with the exception of Cligés, was arranged around the motif of the quest. In each of his romances Chrétien varied the nature and organization of the central quest. In Erec it is essentially linear and graduated in structure, moving from simple to increasingly complex and meaningful encounters. But already in Erec Chrétien was experimenting with a technique for interrupting the linearity and varying the adventures, a technique he would employ with particular success in The Knight with the Lion and The Story of the Grail, and which would be used extensively in the prose romances: interlacing. In its simplest manifestations, as it functions twice in The Knight with the Lion, interlacing involves the weaving together of two distinct lines of action: each time Yvain begins an adventure, it is interrupted so that he can complete a second before returning to finish the first. In the first instance, Yvain is on his way to defend Lunete, who has been condemned to die for having persuaded her mistress to marry the unfaithful Yvain. He secures lodging at a town that is besieged by the giant Harpin of the Mountain and, though it nearly causes him to be too late to save Lunete, he remains and defeats the giant. In the second instance, Yvain agrees to defend the cause of the younger daughter of the lord of Blackthorn, who is about to be disinherited by her sister. But before the combat with her champion, Gawain, can be concluded, Yvain is called to enter the town of Dire Adventure and free three hundred maidens who are forced to embroider for minimal wages in intolerable conditions. The same pattern recurs in The Story of the Grail, where Chrétien cuts back and forth between the adventures of Gawain and those of Perceval. The adventures in The Knight of the Cart, on the other hand, are organized according to the principle of contrapasso, by which the nature of the punishment corresponds precisely to the nature of the sin: having hesitated to step into the cart, Lancelot must henceforth show no hesitations in his service of ladies and the queen.

  In the midst of the interlace in The Knight with the Lion, Chrétien introduces a complex patte
rn of intertextual references designed to link that poem to The Knight of the Cart, which he was composing apparently simultaneously. In the town besieged by Harpin of the Mountain, Yvain learns that the lord’s wife is Sir Gawain’s sister, but that Gawain is unable to succour them because he is away seeking Queen Guinevere, who has been carried off by ‘a knight from a foreign land’ (Meleagant) after King Arthur had foolishly entrusted her to Sir Kay. This is a direct allusion to the central action of The Knight of the Cart, and interweaves the plots of the two romances. Gawain cannot see to his own family’s welfare in The Knight with the Lion because he is concurrently engaged in a quest in The Knight of the Cart. During the second interlace pattern of The Knight with the Lion, the elder sister arrives at Arthur’s court just after Gawain has returned with the queen and the other captives from the land of Gorre, and it is specifically noted that Lancelot ‘remained locked in the tower’. This second direct reference to the intrigue of The Knight of the Cart refers, perhaps deliberately, to the point at which Chrétien abandoned this romance, leaving its completion to Godefroy de Lagny. This intertextual technique did not have the success of the interlace, but attests like it to an acute artistic awareness on the part of Chrétien to the structuring of his romances. This technique of intertextual reference could also be seen as an attempt by Chrétien to lend depth or consistency to this work, setting each romance in a broader, more involved world (a technique used later in the Lancelot-Graal, where events not specifically recounted in that work are alluded to as background material). In Chrétien’s case it might even be seen as self-promotion, encouraging the reader or listener of one romance to seek out the other.

  Chrétien’s artistry was not limited to overall structure, but extends as well to the details of composition. In all of his romances Chrétien shows himself to be a master of dialogue, which he uses for dramatic effect. With the exception of Cligés, where the lengthy monologues are frequently laboured and rhetorical, his often rapid-fire conversations give the impression of a real discussion overheard, rather than of learned discourse. The pertness and wit of Lunete, as she convinces her lady first to accept the slayer of her husband as her second mate and then to take him back after he has offended her, are often cited and justly admired. Erec and Enide’s exchanges as they ride along on adventure show both the tenderness and irritation underlying their relationship. In The Knight of the Cart, the conversations between Meleagant and his father quite accurately set off their opposing characters through their choices of vocabulary and imagery, and the words used by Lancelot with the queen vividly translate his abject humility and total devotion. In The Story of the Grail, Perceval’s youthful naïveté comes across in his questions to the knights and his conversation with the maiden in the tent. In that same romance the catty exchanges between Tiebaut of Tintagel’s two daughters could not be more true to life. Chrétien gives his dialogues a familiar ring through his choice of appropriate vocabulary and a generous sprinkling of proverbial expressions. In Erec’s defiance of Maboagrain, he incorporates five proverbial expressions in only ten lines of dialogue (ll. 5873–82), using traditional wisdom to justify and support his current course of action. In the opening scene of The Knight with the Lion, Calogrenant shrugs off Kay’s insults by citing a series of proverbs, and shortly thereafter Kay himself uses proverbial wisdom to insult Yvain. Proverbs and proverbial expressions occur in the other romances as well, where they are particularly prevalent in the monologues and dialogues.

  Chrétien’s use of humour and irony has been frequently noted, as has his ability to incorporate keenly observed realistic details into the most fantastic adventures. Like the dialogues, the descriptions of persons and objects are not rhetorical or lengthy, but are precise, lively and colourful. His portraits of feminine beauty, though they follow the typical patterns of description, nevertheless provide variety in their details. Chrétien even had the rare audacity to make one of his heroines (Lunete in The Knight with the Lion), a brunette rather than a blonde! Even more striking in their variety, however, are the portraits of ugliness: the physical ugliness of the wretched maiden with her torn dress and the grotesque damsel on her tawny mule in The Story of the Grail, the churlish herdsman in The Knight with the Lion, or the psychological ugliness of Meleagant.

  Chrétien also excels in his descriptions of nature – of the plains, valleys, hills, rivers and forests of twelfth-century France and England. Natural occurrences such as the storm in Brocéliande forest early in The Knight with the Lion, followed by the sunshine and singing of birds, or the frightening dark night of rain the maiden later rides through in search of Yvain, are vividly evoked in octosyllabic verses of pure lyric quality. Castles, such as that of Perceval’s tutor Gornemant of Gohort, perched on their rocky promontories above raging rivers, with turrets, keeps and drawbridges, are all in the latest style of cut-stone construction. Gawain’s Hall of Marvels in The Story of the Grail has ebony and ivory doors with carved panels, while the one into which Yvain pursues the fleeing Esclados the Red is outfitted with a mechanized portcullis. In Erec in particular Chrétien treats with consummate skill the activities, intrigues, passions, and colour of contemporary court life. This romance is filled with lavish depictions of garments, saddles and trappings, and ceremonies that give proof of his keen attention to detail and his pleasure in description. Justly famous is the elaborate description of Erec’s coronation robe (ll. 6698–763), on which four fairies had skilfully embroidered portrayals of the four disciplines of the quadrivium: Geometry, Arithmetic, Music and Astronomy. His depiction of the great hall and Grail procession in The Story of the Grail is filled with specific details, which are richly suggestive and create an aura of mystery and wonder. In his descriptions, as in much of what he writes, Chrétien tantalizes us with details that are precise yet mysterious in their juxtapositions. He refuses to explain, and in that refusal lies much of his interest for us today. His artistry is one of creating a tone of wonder and mystification. What is Erec’s motivation? Why does Enide set off on the quest in her best dress? Did Lancelot consummate his love with Guinevere? What is the significance of Yvain’s lion? What is the mystery of the Grail Castle? In his prologue to Erec and Enide, Chrétien hints at a greater purpose behind his story than simple entertainment, but he deliberately refuses to spell out that purpose. And near the end of the romance, as Erec is about to recount his own tale for King Arthur, Chrétien significantly refuses to repeat it, telling us in words that apply equally well to all his romances:

  Mes cuidiez vos que je vos die

  quex acoisons le fist movoir?

  Naie, que bien savez le voir

  et de ice et d’autre chose,

  si con ge la vos ai esclose. [ll. 6432–36]

  [But do you expect me to tell you the reason that made him set out? No indeed, for you well know the truth of this and of other things, just as I have disclosed it to you.]

  All the answers we may require, Chrétien assures us, are already embedded within the bele conjointure he has just opened out before us with such consummate artistry. In considering these details one must resist the temptation to seek an allegorical or symbolic interpretation for each one. Borrowing constantly from a reserve of symbols, Chrétien, like his contemporary listener or reader, would have been aware of the symbolic potential of certain terms, or certain numbers, animals or gems. But these symbols are handled delicately and naturally, with no continuous system. Chrétien was not writing a sustained allegory, such as the Romance of the Rose or the Divine Comedy. Contrary to pure allegory, his symbolic mode is discontinuous and polyvalent: it does not function in a single predictable manner in each instance, and one interpretation does not necessarily preclude another. Rosemond Tuve (1966) says, writing of such works: ‘Though a horse may betoken undisciplined impulses in one context, a knight parted from a horse in the next episode may just be a knight parted from a horse’. The symbol may change meaning freely and associatively, or include several meanings in a single occurrence, or even d
isappear altogether. Where allegory was an organized science in the Middle Ages, symbolism was an art in which poetic sensitivity, imagination and invention played a significant part.

  Among Chrétien’s greatest achievements must be counted his mastery of the octosyllabic rhymed couplet. Although our translations are into prose, our usual medium today for a lengthy narrative, Chrétien naturally employed the medium of his own day, which had been consecrated before him by use in the rhymed chronicles and the romances of antiquity from which, as we have seen, he drew so much of his inspiration. The relatively short octosyllabic line with its frequent rhyme could become monotonous in untalented hands, but Chrétien manipulated it with great freedom and sensitivity: he varies his rhythms; adapts his rhymes and couplets to the flow of the narrative, rather than forcing his syntax to adhere to a rigidly repeating pattern; uses repetitions and wordplay, anaphora and enjambments; combines sounds harmoniously through the interplay of complementary vowels and consonants; and he uses expressive rhetorical figures to highlight significant words. He was fond of rhyming together two words which in Old French had identical spellings but wholly different meanings, and was likewise fond of playing upon several forms of the same or homonymous words, as in the following passage from Erec:

  Au matinet sont esvellié

  si resont tuit aparellié

  de monter et de chevauchier.

  Erec ot molt son cheval chier,

  que d’autre chevalchier n’ot cure. [ll. 5125–29]

  [They awoke at daybreak and all prepared again to mount and ride. Erec greatly prized his mount, and would not mount another.]

  Perhaps Chrétien’s most spectacular use of vocalic harmonies, repetition and chiasmus is in the following lines from The Knight with the Lion, where the repetition of the ui and oi diphthongs and the high vowels u and i underscores the mental anguish of the girl caught in a storm in the forest: