3 - The thirteenth-century Arthur

Summary

Twelfth-century France left two quite distinct legacies to the adept of romance. On the one hand, it provided what was confidently thought to be an historical Arthur, the Arthur whose life-story and political mission were celebrated by the unimpeachable Geoffrey of Monmouth and his authoritative verse-translator and adapter Wace. On the other, it bequeathed a sequence of wonderfully inventive verse romances which focused on individual heroes more or less loosely attached to Arthur and his Round Table: the romances principally of Chrétien de Troyes, of course, but also of the Tristan tradition. The writers of the previous century had elaborated much of the portfolio of structures and motifs and narrative patterns which were to characterise romance: the ethic of solitary and individual enterprise; the knight-errant hero and the quest; the search for chivalric identity; the court of Arthur as the point of departure and the benchmark for individual adventure; the tournament as the locus for chivalric competition; the exploration of sexuality and desire; the conflict and reconciliation of love and chivalry; the pleasures of deferral; the problematic and irresistible ultimate adventure, the Grail.