Desktop versionMobile version

Cultures courtoises en mouvement

 | 
Isabelle Arseneau
, 
Francis Gingras

Discours et contre-discours de la courtoisie

The Courting and Un-Courting of Tristan and Lancelot

Janina P. Traxler

The HTML, PDF, ePub formats of this book are available to the users of libraries and institutions subscribing to the OpenEdition Freemium program for Books. The book can also be purchased on the sites of partner bookstores, in PDF and ePub formats, if the publisher has opted for commercial distribution. If a print edition of the book is available, links to bookstores will be displayed on this page.

Excerpt

The stories of Lancelot and Tristan have perennially generated debate about whether one or both characters exemplifies courtly love or mere sin, about how well they manage the demands of courtliness and chivalry, or about how much they resemble each other. Initially, Lancelot’s story did not include Tristan’s, but after the twelfth century, Tristan’s story clearly included Lancelot’s. Judging from the thirteenth-century Prose Tristan and the fourteenth-century Tavola Ritonda, two of the most influential prose Tristan romances, when the Arthurian world “courts” Tristan – integrates him into Arthur’s circle – it also “uncourts” Lancelot – displaces him to focus more glowingly on Tristan. This transformation obviously affects narrative. Indeed, Emmanuèle Baumgartner argues that the narrative changes actually overwhelm Tristan.1 But the shifts also affect style, as the lyricism and intellectual refinement –the courtliness– of the twelfth-century poems give way to businesslike (and most ...

Author

Manchester College

The text and other elements (illustrations, imported files) may be used under OpenEdition Books License, unless otherwise stated.

Search OpenEdition Search

You will be redirected to OpenEdition Search