The Arthurian romances of Chrétien de Troyes : once and future fictions

Bibliographic Information

The Arthurian romances of Chrétien de Troyes : once and future fictions

Donald Maddox

(Cambridge studies in medieval literature, 12)

Cambridge University Press, 1991

Available at  / 14 libraries

Search this Book/Journal

Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. 167-176) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Chretien de Troyes was one of the most important medieval writers of Arthurian narrative. A key figure in reshaping the 'once and future fictions' of Arthurian story, he was instrumental in the late twelfth-century shift from written and oral legendary traditions to a highly sophisticated literary cultivation of the Old French verse romance. While examining individually each of Chretien's five Arthurian romances, Donald Maddox looks at their coherence as a group, suggesting that their intertextual relations lend a harmony of meaning and design to the ensemble as a whole. Central to his argument is the focus on customs, which provide unity within as well as among the works while conveying an acute sense of the vulnerability and dissolution of feudal institutions in an age of social crisis and transition.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • 1. Rex quondam: Arthurian tradition and the anterior order
  • 2. Safely through the realm: customs in Le chevalier de la charrette
  • 3. Tenir Terre: customs in Le chevalier au lion
  • 4. Rexque Futurus: the anterior order in Le conte du graal
  • 5. Arthurian intertextuality: crisis and custom
  • Conclusion
  • Literary customs and the socio-historical question
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • Bibliography.

by "Nielsen BookData"

Related Books: 1-1 of 1

Details

Page Top