Chrétien's works include five major poems in rhyming eight-syllable couplets. Four of these are complete:Erec and Enide (c. 1170);Cligès (c. 1176);Yvain, the Knight of the Lion; andLancelot, the Knight of the Cart, the latter two written simultaneously between 1177 and 1181.Yvain is generally considered Chrétien's most masterful work.[6] The last romance commonly attributed to Chrétien,Perceval, the Story of the Grail, was written between 1181 and 1190, but left unfinished. It is dedicated toPhilip, Count of Flanders, to whom Chrétien may have been attached[clarification needed] in his last years. He finished only 9,000 lines of the work, but four successors of varying talents added 54,000 additional lines in what are known as theFour Continuations.[7] Similarly, the last thousand lines ofLancelot were written byGodefroi de Leigni, apparently by arrangement with Chrétien.[8] In the case ofPerceval, one continuer says the poet's death prevented him from completing the work; in the case ofLancelot, no reason is given. This has not stopped speculation that Chrétien did not approve ofLancelot's adulterous subject (in which case he seems unlikely to have invented Lancelot).
There are also several lesser works, not all of which can be securely ascribed to Chrétien.Philomela is the only one of his four poems based onOvid'sMetamorphoses that has survived.[9] Two short-lyricchansons on the subject of love are also very likely his, but the attribution of the pious romanceGuillaume d'Angleterre to him is now widely doubted.[10][11] It has also been suggested that Chrétien might be the author of two short verse romances,Le Chevalier à l'épée andLa Mule sans frein, but this theory has not found much support.[11][12][13] Chrétien names his treatments of Ovid in the introduction toCligès, where he also mentions his work aboutKing Mark andIseult. The latter is presumably related to the legend ofTristan and Iseult, thoughTristan is not named. Chrétien's take on Tristan has not survived, though in the introduction of Cligès, Chrétien himself says that his treatment of Tristan was not well received, possibly explaining why it does not survive. Chrétien's works are written in vernacularOld French, although it is marked by traits of the regionalChampenois dialect (which is still fairly similar to the "standard" French of Paris).
The immediate and specific sources for his romances are uncertain, as Chrétien speaks in the vaguest way of the materials he used.Geoffrey of Monmouth orWace might have supplied some of the names, but neither author mentionedErec,Lancelot,Gornemant, or many others who play important roles in Chrétien's narratives. One is left to guess about Latin or French literary originals which are now lost, or upon continental lore that goes back to aCeltic source in the case ofBéroul, anAnglo-Norman who wrote around 1150. For hisPerceval, the Story of the Grail, the influence of the story is clearly tied to the story of Saint Galgano (Galgano Guidotti), who died in 1180–1181 and was canonized in 1185: a knight, struck by God's vision, planted his sword in the ground, that immediately solidified (kept inAbbey San Galgano). But Chrétien found his sources immediately at hand, without much understanding of its primitive spirit, but appreciating it as a setting for the ideal society dreamed of, although not realized, in his own day, and Chrétien's five romances together form the most complete expression from a single author of the ideals of Frenchchivalry. Though so far there has been little critical attention paid to the subject, it is not inaccurate to say that Chrétien was influenced by the changing face of secular and canonical law in the 12th century. This is particularly relevant to hisLancelot, the Knight of the Cart, which makes repeated use of the customary law prevalent in Chrétien's day.[14]
William Wistar Comfort praised Chrétien's "significance as a literary artist and as the founder of a precious literary tradition [which] distinguishes him from all other poets of theLatin races between the close of theEmpire and the arrival ofDante."[15] Chrétien's writing was very popular, as evidenced by the high number of surviving copies of his romances and their many adaptations into other languages. Three ofMiddle High German literature's finest examples,Wolfram von Eschenbach'sParzival andHartmann von Aue'sErec andIwein, were based onPerceval,Erec, andYvain; the ThreeWelsh Romances associated with theMabinogion (Peredur, son of Efrawg,Geraint and Enid, andOwain, or the Lady of the Fountain) derive from the same trio. But especially in the case ofPeredur, the connection between the Welsh romances and their source is probably not direct and has never been satisfactorily delineated. Chrétien also has the distinction of being the first writer to mention theHoly Grail[16] (Perceval),Camelot (Lancelot), and the love affair between QueenGuinevere and Lancelot (Lancelot), subjects of household recognition even today.
There is a specificClassical influence in Chrétien's romances, the likes of which (theIliad, theAeneid, theMetamorphoses) were "translated into the Old French vernacular during the 1150s".[17] Foster Guyer argues that specificallyYvain, the Knight of the Lion contains definiteOvidian influence: "Yvain was filled with grief and showed the Ovidian love symptoms of weeping and sighing so bitterly that he could scarcely speak. He declared that he would never stay away a full year. Using words like those of Leander in the seventeenth of Ovid's Epistles he said: 'If only I had the wings of a dove/to fly back to you at will/Many and many a time I would come'."[18]
Chrétien has been termed "the inventor of the modernnovel". Karl Uitti argues: "With [Chrétien's work] a new era opens in the history of European story telling… this poem reinvents the genre we call narrative romance; in some important respects it also initiates the vernacular novel."[17] A "story" could be anything from a single battle scene, to a prologue, to a minimally cohesive tale with little to no chronological layout. Uitti argues thatYvain is Chrétien's "most carefully contrived romance… It has a beginning, a middle, and an end: we are in no doubt that Yvain's story is over."[17] This very method of having three definite parts, including the build in the middle leading to the climax of the story, is in large part why Chrétien is seen to be a writer of novels five centuries before novels, as we know them, existed.
^Grigsby, John L. (1991). "Continuations ofPerceval". InNorris J. Lacy,The New Arthurian Encyclopedia, pp. 99–100. New York: Garland.ISBN0-8240-4377-4.
M. Altieri,Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes: Leur perspective proverbiale et gnomique (1976, A G Nizet, Paris).
Jean Frappier, "Chrétien de Troyes" inArthurian Literature in the Middle Ages,Roger S. Loomis (ed.). Clarendon Press: Oxford University. 1959.ISBN0-19-811588-1
Jean Frappier,Chrétien de Troyes: The Man and His Work. Translated by Raymond J. Cormier. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1982.
Idris Llewelyn Foster, "Gereint, Owein andPeredur" inArthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, Roger S. Loomis (ed.). Clarendon Press: Oxford University. 1959.
K. Sarah-Jane Murray, "A Preface to Chretien de Troyes," Syracuse University Press, 2008.ISBN0-8156-3160-X
Gerald Seaman, "Signs of a New Literary Paradigm: The 'Christian' Figures in Chrétien de Troyes," in:Nominalism and Literary Discourse, ed. Hugo Keiper,Christoph Bode, and Richard Utz (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997), pp. 87–109.
Albert W. Thompson, "The Additions to Chrétien'sPerceval" inArthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, Roger S. Loomis (ed.). Clarendon Press: Oxford University. 1959
Karl D. Uitti,Chrétien de Troyes Revisited, Twayne: New York, 1995.ISBN0-8057-4307-3
Haidu, Peter; Tomaryn Bruckner, Matilda (2020).Philomena of Chrétien the Jew: the semiotics of evil. Legenda.ISBN978-1-78188-929-9.OCLC1255369712.
This article incorporates material from an essay by W. W. Comfort, published in 1914.
Dictionnaire Électronique de Chrétien de Troyes complete lexicon and transcriptions of the five romances of this Old French author by ATILF/CNRS-Université de Lorraine and LFA/University of Ottawa
