The Old French Tristan Poems

Published by Boydell & Brewer Inc.

Text and facing page translation of key texts for the Tristan legend. These first volumes of the series Arthurian Archives present the Old French verse texts devoted to Tristan and Iseut. Authoritative critical editions are complemented by parallel translations, with introduction, variants and rejected readings, and critical notes. The Tristan tradition in medieval France is dominated by two longer poems by Beroul and Thomas, both included in these volumes; the full contents of the two volumes are: I. Béroul, TheRomance of TristranNORRIS J. LACY; Les Folies Tristan: La Folie Tristan (Berne) and La Folie Tristan (Oxford) SAMUEL N. ROSENBERG II. Thomas, Tristan STEWART GREGORY; `The Carlisle Fragment' of Thomas's Tristan IAN SHORT; Marie de France, Chevrefeuil RICHARD O'GORMAN; Tristan Ménestrel and Tristan RossignolKAREN FRESCO NORRIS J. LACY is Professor of French at the Pennsylvania State University.

A study of identity, intertextuality and meaning in the Old French Tristan Poems. The book is divided into three sections: Tristan's social identities, Tristan's disguises, Tristan victim and savior.

12th-century French retellings and variations of the story of Tristan and Iseut. The strong and enduring appeal of the Arthurian legends shows no signs of abating, yet many medieval Arthurian texts remain unedited or printed in editions no longer available, while comparatively few of them have been translatedinto English, thus making them inaccessible to the scholarly or general audience unable to read them in the original. The Arthurian Archives series addresses these problems, aiming to provide authoritative critical editionswith parallel translation of essentialtexts for Arthurian studies; each text will be accompanied by a brief introduction, variants and rejected readings, and critical notes. This first volume offers a collection of the French Tristan texts prior to the Prose Tristan; of particular importance is the recently-discovered Thomas fragment, here edited Ian Short. Contents: Béroul, The Romance of Tristan (Norris Lacy); Thomas, Tristan (Stewart Gregory); `The Carlisle Fragment' of Thomas's Tristan (Ian Short) Marie de France, Chevrefeuil (Richard O'Gorman)The Folie Tristan de Berne and the Folie Tristan d'Oxford (Samuel N. Rosenberg)

Nickolaus provides the readers with a concise critical discussion of the "courtly love" debate, broad historical and comparative analysis, and a model that explains, at the level of plot, rhetoric, and ideology, the proper place of amorous motifs in the context of prevailing Christian doctrines and attitudes.

First Published in 2002.

This is the first study to apply some of the results of modern cognitive science to all the major genres of the courtly love literature of medieval France (twelfth and thirteenth centuries) in Occitan, Old French, and Latin.

What is love? Popular culture bombards us with notions of the intoxicating capacities of love or of beguiling women who can bewitch or heal—to the point that it is easy to believe that such images are timeless and universal. Not so, argues Laine Doggett in Love Cures. Aspects of love that are expressed in popular music—such as “love is a drug,” “sexual healing,” and “love potion number nine”—trace deep roots to Old French romance of the high Middle Ages. A young woman heals a poisoned knight. A mother prepares a love potion for a daughter who will marry a stranger in a faraway land. How can readers interpret such events? In contrast to scholars who have dismissed these women as fantasy figures or labeled them “witches,” Doggett looks at them in the light of medical and magical practices of the high Middle Ages. Love Cures argues that these practitioners, as represented in romance, have shaped modern notions of love. Love Cures seeks to engage scholars of love, marriage, and magic in disciplines as diverse as literature, history, anthropology, and philosophy.

Index of themes in 12c French Arthurian verse romances from literary themes to everyday motifs. There has long been a need for an index of the themes in the French Arthurian verse romances. E.H. Ruck's analysis includes not only therecognised literary themes - the Unspelling Quest, the FaithlessWife -of the verse romances from Wace's Brut to Froissart'sMeliador, but also the other, less obvious, motifs of equalsignificance to the researcher, hawthorns, for example, and weaponry. Dr Ruck's index encompasses the Arthurian part of Wace's Brut; all of the works of Chrétien de Troyes; all four Tristan poems together with Marie de France's Chevrefoil and Lanval; the lais of Tyolet, Melion, Cor and Mantel; Renaut de Beaujeu's Le Bel Inconnu; La Mule sans frein and Le Chevalier à l'épée. As the index is intended first and foremost for the use of Arthurian scholars, the non-Arthurian parts of the Brut and the Laisof Marie de France have not been included, although reference is made to them in the notes. E.H. RUCK studied at the universities of Exeter, Lancaster, and Reading, where she worked for her PhD.