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Chrétien de Troyes and
Arthurian Romance
How Does Romance Differ from (Pseudo)Chronicle?
How Does Romance Differ from (Pseudo)Chronicle?
Romance tells of adventures, not of survival
The hero is wealthy and privileged
The hero quests voluntarily
Action has no real exterior motivation
The hero fights to test and prove the values of chivalry.
He also fights in service to a lady
He is the lady’s lover and follows the rules of courtly love.
Elements of the “marvelous” or supernatural occur
Geography and time are unreal
The hero’s successes are vital to his identity and self-realization
The hero’s inner consciousness is explored
Why Does the Arthurian Story Change Genres?
Why Does the Arthurian Story Change Genres?
Arthur gets transplanted to France
Once removed from the British, the story loses
nationalistic characteristics
After losing these, it becomes concerned with social
fashion instead of heroic acts
Offshoots of Chrétien
Offshoots of Chrétien
1135-1183
Vulgate Cycle 1215-1230
Includes the Romance of Lancelot du Lac
Includes the Quest for the Holy Grail
Includes the Mort Artu
Composed by Cistercian monks
Hence its emphasis on the life of holiness
The chaste Galahad is the perfect knight with Percival
and Bors secondary
Reshaped in 1230 with more on Merlin
Alliterative Morte Arthure
Stanzaic Morte Arthure
Vulgate Cycle
How does it expand Chrétien’s story of the Grail?
In Chrétien’s romance, the grail is vaguely mysterious
and associated with the wounded Fisher King
In the Vulgate, the grail is the object of a quest for
spiritual perfection
Arthur’s knights will fail
Galahad is introduced to win the grail
Alliterative Morte Arthure
Draws much on Geoffrey of Monmouth and the
epic, pseudo-chronological tradition
Deals with the last days of Arthur and the end of the
Round Table
Is heroic, martial, focused on war
Women are mostly absent or are wives and/or
mothers of dynasties
Stanzaic Morte Arthur
Derives from the French Tradition: the Vulgate
Has as its purpose to show that the failure of the
Grail Quest marked the failure of the Round Table
At the end, the only recourse is to religion
Everyone left alive retreats to a monastery.
Serves as important source for Malory
Focuses on the expression of powerful feeling.
Tone in Chrétien
Where does Chrétien seem funny?
Where does he seem serious?
What might be the purpose of his tone?
Knight of the Cart: Lancelot
Marie de Champagne was patroness to both Andreas
Capellanus and Chrétien. Which of the Rules of
Courtly Love are invoked in the Lancelot story?
What is your sense of Sir Kay in Chrétien’s
Lancelot? Does this differ from Malory?
The queen grants Kay a “rash boon” at the start of
the story. Where else do you see these?
Why does Lancelot hesitate to get into the cart?
How does Gawain behave as a foil for Lancelot?
Knight of the Cart: Lancelot
Completion of the story left to Godefroy de Lagny.
One instance of jousting occurs on p. 218. Find other
examples. Why such repetition?
Chrétien claims his source for the story was Marie de
Champagne who would likely have obtained it from
Celtic abduction stories. Is this believable?
What meaning might be attached to Lancelot’s
discovery of the future tombs of Gawain and others,
including his own?
What are Lancelot and Guinever like at the start of the
story? Does either or do both change?
The Story of the Grail: Perceval
Chrétien is the first to mention the Grail, the Bleeding Lance, and the Fisher King
The story’s origin is argued. It does combine supernatural and mystic elements
with “keenly observed contemporary social behavior” (Kibler 11)
Perceval has no idea of his noble lineage
Perceval is instinctually capable of chivalric acts
Perceval’s meditation on three drops of blood get attached to his religious
experience by writers, but they are focused on a lady, not God.
Gawain is a secular foil to Perceval
Does Chrétien’s tone in the Grail story differ significantly from his tone in the
Lancelot story? If so, why might this be?
Chrétien’s descriptions of nature and of human-made artifacts are detailed, lush,
realistic, and suggestive of mystery.
The Story of the Grail: Perceval
What do the young Perceval’s exchanges with the
knights and the maiden in the tent show about him?
Why does Perceval fail in his first stay in the Grail
Castle?
What insight does Perceval show or fail to show with
respect to his mother and her death?
Is Perceval consistent in obeying the suggestions
given to him on his quest?
Malory
Where is Malory’s story pseudo-chronicle?
Where is Malory’s story romance?
Who Are Important 19th Century Arthurians?
Who Are Important 19th
Century Arthurians?
Sir Walter Scott
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Bridal of Triermain
Idylls of the King
Mark Twain
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Contemporary Arthuriana
Once and Future King by T. H. White
Strengths
Fine details of medieval practices
“Imaginative inhabiting of other realms of experience”
(Pearsall 154)
An effective framework to drive the story
An effective ending
Weaknesses
Reflects bias against pop democracy and totalitarianism
Cultivated quaintness: not historical reality, but full of
historical references
Consciously anachronistic (“historical goulash”)
Oppressively patronizing and “avuncular” tone
Contemporary Arthuriana
Camelot by Learner and Lowe
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Z Bradley
Who and Where is Arthur Now?