Four Arthurian Romances | Page 3

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Four Arthurian Romances ("Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot")
by Chretien DeTroyes Fl. 12th Century A.D.
Originally written in Old French, sometime in the second half of the 12th Century A.D.,
by the court poet Chretien DeTroyes.
This electronic edition was edited, proofed, and prepared by Douglas B. Killings
([email protected]), November 1996.
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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY:
ORIGINAL TEXT --
Carroll, Carleton W. (Ed.): "Chretien DeTroyes: Erec and Enide" (Garland Library of
Medieval Literature, New York & London, 1987). Edited with a translation (see Penguin
Classics edition below).
Kibler, William W. (Ed.): "Chretien DeTroyes: The Knight with the Lion, or Yvain
(Garland Library of Medieval Literature 48A, New York & London, 1985). Original text
with English translation (See Penguin Classics edition below).
Kibler, William W. (Ed.): "Chretien DeTroyes: Lancelot, or The Knight of the Cart
(Garland Library of Medieval Literature 1A, New York & London, 1981). Original text
with English translation (See Penguin Classics edition below).
Micha, Alexandre (Ed.): "Les Romans de Chretien de Troyes, Vol. II: Cliges" (Champion,
Paris, 1957).
OTHER TRANSLATIONS --
Cline, Ruth Harwood (Trans.): "Chretien DeTroyes: Yvain, or the Knight with the Lion"
(University of Georgia Press, Athens GA, 1975).
Kibler, William W. & Carleton W. Carroll (Trans.): "Chretien DeTroyes: Arthurian
Romances" (Penguin Classics, London, 1991). Contains translations of "Erec et Enide"
(by Carroll), "Cliges", "Yvain", "Lancelot", and DeTroyes' incomplete "Perceval" (by
Kibler). Highly recommended.
Owen, D.D.R (Trans.): "Chretien DeTroyes: Arthurian Romances" (Everyman Library,

London, 1987). Contains translations of "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", "Lancelot",
and DeTroyes' incomplete "Perceval". NOTE: This edition replaced W.W. Comfort's in
the Everyman Library catalogue. Highly recommended.
RECOMMENDED READING --
Anonymous: "Lancelot of the Lake" (Trans: Corin Corely; Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 1989). English translation of one of the earliest prose romances concerning
Lancelot.
Anonymous: "The Mabinogion" (Ed: Jeffrey Gantz; Penguin Classics, London, 1976).
Contains a translation of "Geraint and Enid", an earlier Welsh version of "Erec et Enide".
Anonymous: "Yvain and Gawain", "Sir Percyvell of Gales", and "The Anturs of Arther"
(Ed: Maldwyn Mills; Everyman, London, 1992). NOTE: Texts are in Middle-English;
"Yvain and Gawain" is a Middle-English work based almost exclusively on Chretien
DeTroyes' "Yvain".
Malory, Sir Thomas: "Le Morte D'Arthur" (Ed: Janet Cowen; Penguin Classics, London,
1969).
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INTRODUCTION
Chretien De Troyes has had the peculiar fortune of becoming the best known of the old
French poets to students of mediaeval literature, and of remaining practically unknown to
any one else. The acquaintance of students with the work of Chretien has been made
possible in academic circles by the admirable critical editions of his romances undertaken
and carried to completion during the past thirty years by Professor Wendelin Foerster of
Bonn. At the same time the want of public familiarity with Chretien's work is due to the
almost complete lack of translations of his romances into the modern tongues. The man
who, so far as we know, first recounted the romantic adventures of Arthur's knights,
Gawain. Yvain, Erec, Lancelot, and Perceval, has been forgotten; whereas posterity has
been kinder to his debtors, Wolfram yon Eschenbach, Malory, Lord Tennyson, and
Richard Wagner. The present volume has grown out of the desire to place these romances
of adventure before the reader of English in a prose version based directly upon the oldest
form in which they exist.
Such extravagant claims for Chretien's art have been made in some quarters that one feels
disinclined to give them even an echo here. The modem reader may form his own
estimate of the poet's art, and that estimate will probably not be high. Monotony, lack of
proportion, vain repetitions, insufficient motivation, wearisome subtleties, and threatened,
if not actual, indelicacy are among the most salient defects which will arrest, and mayhap
confound, the reader unfamiliar with mediaeval literary craft. No greater service can be
performed by an editor in such a case than to prepare the reader to overlook these
common faults, and to set before him the literary significance of this twelfth-century
poet.
Chretien de Troyes wrote in Champagne during the third quarter of the twelfth century.
Of his life we know neither the beginning nor the end, but we know that between 1160