This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Yvain, le Chevalier au Lion is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
Yvain, the Knight of the Lion (French: Yvain, le Chevalier au Lion) is a romance by Chrétien de Troyes. It was probably written in the 1170s simultaneously with Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, and includes several references to the action in that poem. The main character, Yvain, is derived from the historical Owain mab Urien.
Contents |
Plot
In the poem, Yvain seeks to avenge his cousin Calogrenant who had been defeated by an otherworldly knight beside a magical storm-making fountain in the forest of Broceliande. Yvain defeats this knight, Esclados, and falls in love with his widow Laudine. With the aid of Laudine's servant Lunete, Yvain wins his lady and marries her, but Gawain convinces him to embark on chivalric adventure. His wife assents but demands he return after a set period of time of one year, but he becomes so enthralled in his knightly exploits that he forgets his lady, and she bars him from returning. Yvain goes mad with grief, but eventually decides to win back his love. A lion he rescues from a serpent proves to be a loyal companion and a symbol of knightly virtue, and helps him complete his altruistic ventures. In the end, Laudine allows him and his lion to return to her fortress.
Sources
Chrétien's source for the poem is unknown, but the story bears a number of similarities to the hagiographical Life of Saint Mungo (also known as Saint Kentigern), which claims Owain mab Urien as the father of the saint by Denw, daughter of Lot of Lothian. The similarities suggest the works had a common Latin or Celtic source.1
Text
Yvain survives in seven manuscripts and two fragments. It comprises 6,808 octosyllables in rhymed couplets. The first modern edition was published in 1887 by Wendelin Foerster.
Influence
Yvain had a huge impact on the literary world; German poet Hartmann von Aue used it as the basis for his masterpiece Iwein, and the author of Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain, one of the Welsh Romances included in the Mabinogion, recast the work back into its Welsh setting. The poem exists in a several versions in different languages, including the Middle English Ywain and Gawain.
Notes
- ^ Duggan, Joseph J. (1987). In Chrétien de Troyes; Burton Raffel, Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, pp. 214–216. Yale University Press.
References
- Chrétien de Troyes; Owen, D. D. R. (translator) (1988). Arthurian Romances. New York: Everyman's Library. ISBN 0-460-87389-X.
- Chrétien de Troyes; Raffel, Burton (translator) (1987). Yvain, the Knight of the Lion. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-03837-2.
- Lacy, Norris J. (1991). "Chrétien de Troyes". In Norris J. Lacy, The New Arthurian Encyclopedia, pp. 88–91. New York: Garland. ISBN 0-8240-4377-4.
External links
- Four Arthurian Romances by Chrétien de Troyes at Project Gutenberg (includes Yvain)
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 12 November 2008, at 20:58.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Yvain, le Chevalier au Lion".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.