Arthurian Romances (4 page)
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Authors: Chretien de Troyes
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. 5873â82), 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 â 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. 6698â763), 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. 6432â36]
[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: âThough 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 disappear 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. 5125â29]
[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:
⦠tant que vint a la nuit oscure.
Si li enuia molt la nuiz,
et de ce dobla li enuiz
qu'il plovoit a si grant desroi
com Damedex avoit de coi,
et fu el bois molt au parfont.
Et la nuiz et li bois li font
grant enui, et plus li enuie
que la nuis ne li bois, la pluie. [ll. 4840â48]
[⦠until the shadows of night fell. She was frightened by the night, but her fright was doubled because it was raining as heavily as God could make it pour and she was in the depths of the forest. The night and the forest frightened her, but she was more upset by the rain than either the night or the forest.]
Certainly no translation can hope to capture all the subtlety and magic of Chrétien's art. But one can hope to convey some measure of his humour, his irony and the breadth of his vision. He was one of the great artists and creators of his day, and nearly every romancer after him had to come to terms with his legacy. Some translated or frankly imitated (today we might even say plagiarized) his work; others repeated or developed motifs, themes,
structures and stylistic mannerisms introduced by him; still others continued his stories in ever more vast compilations. Already in the last decade of the twelfth century his
Erec and Enide
had been translated into German as
Erek
by Hartmann von Aue, who in the first years of the thirteenth century also translated
The Knight with the Lion (Iwein
). At about the same time Ulrich von Zatzikhoven translated
The Knight of the Cart
, also into German
(Lanzelet
). But his greatest German emulator was Wolfram von Eschenbach, who adapted Chrétien's
The Story of the Grail
as
Parzival
, one of the finest of all medieval romances, in the first decade of the thirteenth century. There were also direct adaptations of this romance into Middle Dutch and Old Welsh.
In the fifty years from 1190 to 1240 Arthurian romance was the prevailing vogue in France, and no writer could escape Chrétien's influence. Some, like Gautier d'Arras and Jean Renart, deliberately set out to rival him, fruitlessly attempting to surpass the master. Others â the majority â flattered his memory by their imitations of his work. Among the motifs first introduced by Chrétien that are found in more than one romance after him are the tournament in which the hero fights incognito
(Cligés
), the sparrowâhawk contest
(Erec
), the abduction
(The Knight of the Cart
), Sir Kay's disagreeable temperament
(Erec, The Knight of the Cart, The Story of the Grail
), and the heads of knights impaled on stakes
(Erec
).
His incompleted
The Story of the Grail
sparked by far the greatest interest. In the last decade of the twelfth century two anonymous continuators sought to complete the poem. The first took it up where Chrétien left off, continuing the adventures of Sir Gawain for as many as 19,600 lines in the lengthiest redaction, but never reaching a conclusion. The second continuator returned to the adventures of Perceval for an additional 13,000 lines. In the early thirteenth century the romance was given two independent terminations, one by Manessier in some 10,000 additional lines, and the other by Gerbert de Montreuil in 17,000 lines. (See Appendix).
Meanwhile, also in the late twelfth century, Robert de Boron composed a derivative verse account of the history of the Grail in three related poems â
Joseph d'Arimathie, Merlin, Perceval
â of which only the first survives intact. It tells of the origin of the Grail, associating it for the first time with the cup of the Last Supper, and announces that it will be carried to the West and found there by a knight of the lineage of Joseph of Arimathea. Robert's
Perceval
(now totally lost) would have recounted how this knight found the Grail and thereby put an end to the âmarvels of Britain'. The second poem, now fragmentary, links the others by changing the scene to Britain,
introducing Arthur and having Merlin recall the action of the first and predict that of the second. Robert's poems were soon replaced by prose versions, notably the so-called
Didot-Perceval
. In the early thirteenth century there was a second prose reworking of Chrétien's Grail story, known as the
Perlesvaus
, by an anonymous author who also knew the work of Robert de Boron and both the First and Second Continuations.
Chrétien's influence can still be felt in the vast prose compendium of the mid-thirteenth century known as the
Lancelot-Graal
or the Vulgate Cycle (1225â50), which combined his story of Lancelot's love for the queen
(The Knight of the Cart
) with the Grail quest
(The Story of the Grail
), and was the source of Malory's
Le Morte D'Arthur
, the fountainhead of Arthurian material in modern English literature. However, the success of the
Lancelot-Graal
ironically marked the decline of Chrétien's direct influence. As prose came to replace verse as the preferred medium for romance and the French language continued to evolve from Chrétien's Old French to a more modern idiom, his poems were forgotten until the rediscovery of their manuscripts in the nineteenth century.