Chretien and His Works
As mentioned in an earlier post, I intend on treating each of Chretien's works in its own article rather than trying to lump them in a single enormous one. This opening article will be a short overview of Chretien and his works before we get into his individual romances.
Very little is known of Chretien himself except for the little information he provides in his stories. There are no available records from that time that mention him. What is "known" are actually suppositions or deductions. He is believed to possibly have been born sometime around 1140 and to have died before 1200. He names himself "of Troyes" which is the center of the Champagne province and we know that he was associated with the court there because of his dedication to Marie de Champagne found in The Knight of the Cart. This is backed up by the fact that Troyes was a known center of literary activity with several writers associated with it. Aside from this and short list of his works he provides, there is little else to inform us of this great poet.
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| Opening lines of Erec and Enide in original French from an out of print edition. |
Chretien is primarily known for having written his his five Arthurian Romances: Erec and Enide (c. 1170), Cliges (c. 1176), Lancelot, or the Knight of the Cart (c. 1177), Yvain, or the Knight of the Lion (c. 1177),and Perceval, or the story of the Grail (c. 1182). However, according to the dedication in his 2nd romance Cliges, he notes several other works that he did, all of which are lost. There are two translations of Ovid, two poetic adaptations of Ovid stories, and some version of Tristan and Iseult. This is as of circa 1176. He is also believed to have since composed another romance named William of England, though it has never been confirmed. William of England is included in the David Staines book we are using but it is not an Arthurian tale so it will not be covered here (at this time).
When reading the works of Chretien, as is true with many of the works we cover here, it is important to remember that we are reading prose translations of works that were originally poems. In this case they were rhyming french couplets. Here is an example (inset) from an out of print version from Archive.org. There are few other things you want to keep in mind as you read, and I will mention these again as we cover each work. First of all, Chretien was somewhat of a trailblazer. He is considered the father of the the Arthurian Romance and the father of the modern novel. His use of structure with a beginning, a middle, and an end is the same structure we still use today. Second, he did not finish 2 of his works. Lancelot was completed, with his permission, by Godefroi de Leigni for reasons that are not clear. It is supposed that maybe he didn't finish it due to the adulterous subject matter or that, perhaps, he discontinued it after one of his patrons died. Maybe Chretien never had the chance to finish it as is believed to be the case with Perceval, his final work. Interestingly, these two works seemed to have generated a great deal of attention. The character of Lancelot was Chretiens own invention and seems to have resonated with a large audience and generated multiple treatments in France and Germany especially. The Perceval story generated four separate, very lengthy continuations by other authors starting almost immediately after Chretien's death and the last one up to 30 years later.
This is why I have decided to give each story its own section rather than lumping them together. No single author has done as much, aside from Geoffrey of Monmouth, to advance the Arthurian story across the medieval world. If Geoffrey put Arthur on the map, Chretien turned Arthur into an industry.
Thank you and I will see you all soon with Erec and Enide, the world's first Arthurian Romance!
Joe
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