The Arthurian Romances of Chr}}tien de Troyes Once and Future Fictions [Paperback]

Chr?tien de Troyes was one of the most important medieval writers of Arthurian narrative.Chr?tien 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.Chr?tien 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.Chr?tien 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.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.