Novel
Yvain, the Knight of the Lion
Yvain, le Chevalier au lion
Chrétien de Troyes · 1177
Synopsis
At King Arthur's court, Calogrenant tells how he was defeated by the knight who guards a magic fountain in the forest of Brocéliande. His cousin Yvain sets out alone to avenge the affront, mortally wounds the guardian, Esclados the Red, and finds himself shut up in his castle. Lunete, the widow's maid, hides him and then presents him to her mistress, Laudine, who agrees to marry him. But Gawain urges him to go in search of adventures, and Laudine grants him a year.
Context
Written in octosyllables with rhyming couplets, the romance was composed at the same time as another narrative by the same author, between about 1177 and 1181. It survives in several manuscripts, including an illustrated copy in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, français 1433. Its material joins the Welsh tradition of Owain, and the German poet Hartmann von Aue drew his Iwein from it a generation later.
Who it is for
A long verse romance, in Old French, to be read in modern translation or in a bilingual edition.
Prizes and reception
It remains constantly reissued and translated: there are several recent translations, in the Livre de poche, from Folio and from Champion.
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