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 The Bridal of Triermain

Alfred, Lord Tennyson 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?