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Chrétien de Troyes (pronounced /ˈkrɛtˌjæn dəˈtrɔɪ/ in English) was a French poet and trouvère who flourished in the late 12th century. Little is known of his life, but he seems to have been from Troyes, or at least intimately connected with it, and between 1160 and 1172 he served at the court of his patroness Marie of France, Countess of Champagne, daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine, perhaps as herald-at-arms (as Gaston Paris speculated).[1] His work on Arthurian subjects represents some of the best regarded of medieval literature. Chrétien de Troyes is generally considered as the first identified major French Language novelist.
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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), and Yvain, the Knight of the Lion and Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, both written simultaneously between 1177 and 1181. Chrétien's final romance was Perceval, the Story of the Grail, written between 1181 and 1190, but left unfinished. It is dedicated to Philip, Count of Flanders, to whom Chrétien may have been attached 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 the Four Continuations. Similarly, the last thousand lines of Lancelot were written by Godefroi de Leigni, apparently by arrangement with Chrétien. In the case of Perceval, one continuer says the poet's death prevented him from completing the work, in the case of Lancelot, no reason is given. This has not stopped speculation that Chrétien did not approve of Lancelot's adulterous subject.
To him are also attributed two lesser works: the pious romance Guillaume d'Angleterre (an attribution that is no longer believed), and Philomela, the only one of his four poems based on Ovid's Metamorphoses that has survived. Chrétien names his treatments of Ovid in the introduction to Cligès, where he also mentions his work about King Mark and Iseult. The latter is presumably related to the Tristan and Iseult legend, though it is interesting that Tristan is not named.
The immediate and specific source for his romances is of deep interest to the student; unfortunately, he has left us in the dark as to what these were. He speaks in the vaguest way of the materials he used, and though Celtic influence is easily detectable in the stories, there is no direct evidence that he had Celtic written sources. Geoffrey of Monmouth or Wace might have supplied some of the names, but neither author mentioned Erec, Lancelot, Gornemant and many others who play an important role in Chrétien's narratives. One is forced to guess about Latin or French literary originals which are now lost, or upon continental lore that goes back to a Celtic source. It is the same problem that faces the student in the case of Béroul, an Anglo-Norman who wrote about 1150. However, 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 French chivalry. Though as of yet 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 twelfth century. This is particularly relevant for his Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart which makes repeated use of the customary law prevalent in Chrétien’s day. [2]
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 of Middle High German literature's finest examples, Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival and Hartmann von Aue's Erec and Iwein, were based on Perceval, Erec, and Yvain; the Three Welsh Romances associated with the Mabinogion, Peredur, son of Efrawg, Geraint and Enid, and Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain are derived from the same trio. Especially in the case of Peredur, however, 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 the Holy Grail (Perceval) and the love affair between Queen Guinevere and Lancelot (Lancelot), subjects of household recognition even today.
There is a specific Latin influence in Chrétien’s romances the likes of which (The Iliad, The Aeneid, Metamorphoses) were “translated into the Old French vernacular during the 1150s”.[3] Foster Guyer argues that specifically Yvain, the Knight of the Lion contains definite Ovidian influence:
Chrétien has been termed “the inventor of the modern novel” and Karl Uitti argues:
The main quality of the above-mentioned Celtic influences was that of a sort of incompleteness. 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 that Yvain 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”.[3] This very method of having a 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 six centuries before novels existed.
This article incorporates material from an essay by W. W. Comfort, published in 1914.