Arthurian Romances
Chretien de Troyes
Chretien de Troyes
Writing between 1160 and 117, probably the best medieval european romance (but i like The Green knight lots too). These versions were even used by welsh and english writers even though it was written in French. This book (mine is an everyman edition from 1914 and reprinted 83) features four romances (a bunch of stuff happening as oposed to psychological drama of novels). Although many of these stories feature pages of characters internal self torture and suffering over love.
Erec et Enide - probably the best story of the four - with erec saving the poor but beutiful enide from harm to their marraige and comfort which is only disturbed by rumours of erec no onger doing knightly deeds. Then he leads his wife on a grim suicidal trck through bandit and backwood baronies facing all manner of harm and even some giants for good measure to prove he still has it. Lots of juicy battles and honbour bound craziness you expect fdrom courtly knights.
Cliges - a byzantines kinight seeks king arthur for glory and helps arthur defeat usurpers. He marries has a son liges who by right is heir to byzantium. His unkle agrees to never marry and minds the throne but then slips and decides to marry a german girl who cliges falls in love with. the girl loves him to so her nurse makes a potion which makes the emperor think he is sleeping with his new wife but really it is an illusion thus preserving her virginity and virtue for when after many great trials cliges finally gets her. There is a loveley sequence where the german girl in agonies of love feigns sickness. The doctors realize she is fake and promise them emperor to fix her or kill them. But their best arguements and pleadings for her to stop the bullshit fail. So they do what any good doctors would do in fear of their heads and torture her horribly for days even pouring molten lead through her palms of her hands. Maids hearing this make a swarm of furious women who burst in and hurl the doctors to their deaths from windows. Of course our hero and his tru love get together and all is well.
Yvain - looking for heroic deeds, Yvain goes to face a local custom others have failed against. After defeating the custom of the knight and chasing him home, Yvain is helped by a maid with a magic ring and even gets to marry the dead knights wife and promises to defend the custom and the land. He is madly in love but eventualy he goes off on a quest where madness strikes him. When it is a over he realizes he is long over due and has broken a promise to return to his wife. While heading back he gets caught up in new adventures by a string of helpless maidens beset by sons of demons, women burning mobs and other troubles. On the way he makes friends with a lion he saves from a dragon. They have a charming friendship. When others insist Yvain keep his Lion away when they fight - he tells them he cant control it. When his enamies do fight him his lion always intercedes, (even when locked up and told to stay back) and horribly mauls Yvanes enamies. Finaly he get back home and is united with his wife who is pretty pissed at him and he has to impress her all over again. One of the better sections in this book with lots of fights and monsters and bizzare customs which knights deal with on a daily basis. Customs were a kind of curse which took the form of social and moral obstacles the knight would have to defeat or die trying.
Lancelot - probably not my favorite and ive always been troubled by the superlative knight having a love afair with his best mate and lords wife. It actualy does not identify him as lancelot till some way into the story. It does add some new dimensions to him when he turns into a suicidal wimp because guenivere slighted him a bit in public and he lets a mob string him up without a fight, and she stops eating when she hears he was killed by the mob. not my favorite bit and the least finished of the four but still interesting.
With all the shit versions in film and tv i implore people to read some real medieval writings on these romances. Im going to try and read some more soon. I am still impressed by the psychological depths of dispair characters threw themselves into - yet they are not considered novels. This stuff troubled church and state yet was popular entertainment. You could love a woman more than good or your lord was dangerous stuff. It is also the only mode of intense personall thought and dispair a literary character could have- which smacks or 20th century modernisms obsession with internal dispair, illness and mental health.
