Theme: Love & Adventure2 Developments

Anglo-Norman interest in ‘matière de Bretagne’: HRB – Wace – Eleanor&Henry (family tree), also Marie de France (Lais based on Breton songs, Lanval)

Courtliness & courtly love

Courtliness and Love Historical developments (agricultural

improvements, feudal pyramid) >> courtly culture (castles (ppt), prosperity & leisure time; rules of conduct (Bumke, Elias), feelings under control

Trobadors (langue d’oc): fin’ amors for the gentleman-poet and his circle

Aquitaine >> Eleanor steeped in courtly love, moves North (langue d’oïl)

Courtly culture spreads in courts under her influence, troubadour lyrics and new genre of Arthurian romance!

Champagne Marie, Eleanor’s daughter, holds court

in Troyes Andreas Capellanus, De Amore libri

tres (ca. 1185) >> description of amourous matters, discussions in ‘Cour d’amour’ >> handout

Love’s sweet sorrows; dilemma’s New form of conduct, role models for

men and women (cf. HRB)

Chrétien de Troyes

Court cleric in Marie’s service, perhaps also of the English king

No biographical information, except his own prologues, giving name, patron and sources

Also: matière, san, conjointure >> poetical method

Chrétien’s works

Cligés prologue Erec & Enide: Love and knighthood,

social functions of the married man Cligés: love triangle (anti Tristan) Yvain: Knighthood and Love Lancelot Conte du Graal ou Perceval >> next

week

Parijs BN 122

Lancelot Prologue (san, matière come from Marie;

Chrétien adds craftsmanship, conjointure) Story: Méléagant, Keu, don, rescue by

Gauvain and anonymous knight, cart, sword bridge, fight I, harsh queen, misunderstandings, reconciliation, rendez-vous in barred room, blood on the sheets, judicial duel (fight II), return to court, Lancelot’s captivity, tournament, deliverance and ‘happy’ end (Godefroi de Leigni)

Adultery condoned? Other world

Lanzelet Mystification name: oral tales about

the queen’s lover Example: Ulrich von Zatzikhoven’s

Lanzelet >> strange youth, mermaids, ladies’ man (text connected to Richard Lionheart, hostages)

Introduction greatest lover leads to new texts

Prose Lancelot

Around 1200: verse-prose debate True Story about Arthur, Lancelot and

the Grail: Vulgate Cycle, based upon *non-cyclic Lancelot and prose version Chrétien’s text

Trilogy and fivefold cycle (diagram) Text read in tr. Lacy

Guidelines for Friday

E. Do Lancelot and Guinevere understand each other?

F. What was the motive for Lancelot’s actions? Dante: What is the role of Galehaut / Galeotto?

A. Is the discovery of the lovers a sad event?

B. Do Lancelot and Guinevere feel guilty?