#Chrétien de Troyes

[illustratus]

Lancelot crossing the Sword Bridge

Miniature illustration from a four-volume manuscript made for Jacques d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours. Workshop of Évrard d'Espinques. Circa 1475.

[queer-ragnelle]

Do you have a guide/a recommended reading list for getting into Arthurian legends? I’ve been really getting into it in the past few months but I feel like I’m missing out on a lot of the foundations of it. (If you don’t and this is too big of an ask totally feel free to ignore this lol)

EDIT: Beginner’s Guide to Medieval Arthuriana

hello, anon.

i don't currently although i have plans to add another page to my blog listing medieval texts as well as links to download pdfs of them. i have english translations of texts originating in belarussian, dutch, french, german, hebrew, italian, latin, middle english, and last but not least, welsh.

in the mean time, i've collected for you some key texts that are readily available to read for free online!

le morte d'arthur by sir thomas malory [part 1] [part 2]

the history of the britons by nennius [here]

the mabinogion translated by lady charlotte guest [here]

four romances by chrétien de troyes [here]

parzival by wolfram von eschenbach [part 1] [part 2]

the wedding of sir gawain and dame ragnelle translated by thomas hahn [here]

sir gawain and the green knight translated by j. r. r. tolkien [here]

better translations/formatting forthcoming! enjoy. :^)

[evedaser]

alright finished erec and enide. it may be harder for me to consolidate my thoughts as i’ve been reading it in much less of an obsessive haze than i did the others thus far. i also simply liked it less, but i’ll get to that. this is going to be much more pessimistic than all the others as well because im sitting in a government service office rn so im not exactly filled with excitement or anything

- i know this is the earliest of chrétien’s romances, so rather than being repetitive it’s actually establishing his patterns, but god this man. this man. every time anyone writes of a knight, they are always THE best and THE noblest. there can only be so many best and noblest knights my guy 😭 at least he does kind of acknowledge the others whom he favours and to an extent how they compare, mentioning them as equal or second to each other, or within the same class and quality.

- i opened this thinking erec was going to be such a wifeguy. the introduction to the edition im reading did rightly state the central problem of the story — that erec loves enide so greatly his knightly duties and glory begin to suffer — but he spends the entire second part of the story treating her like shit. having read how devoted he is to her from the first part, it’s hard to believe, it feels like you’re always waiting for him to drop the act and explain whatever kind of test he’s putting her through, but that part is all from enide’s perspective and no explanation ever comes, it’s so perplexing and frankly a bit disturbing.

- speaking of which i think i need to find a modern retelling of this i couldn’t stand the treatment of enide throughout this goddamn story. i love her, she’s a wonderful character and the most central a woman has been so far in the small selection of stories i have read. she’s never idle in her interactions, she’s quite strong willed and is deeply devoted, loyal, and caring for erec, for her family, and for all who rightly endear themselves to her. it’s just nice to have a character who is a normal and good person

- on a better note, the sparrow hawk competition was fucking fantastic. it was fun, interesting, and with quite a compelling antagonist as far as these things go. he was fun to hate, like a disney villain or a high school movie bully, and the length of the fight strang along the tension quite well instead of erec just instantly winning.

ok onto the bullshit

- love a man who has a good relationship with his father 🔥

- knights really do follow fucking pokémon logic. if you make eye contact you MUST do battle. what happened to “hello, how are you”. poor enide being subjected to this ridiculous culture 💀💀 some of those knights he fought were such assholes though lmao

- the thing with the giants was crrraaazyyyy someone teach these people some fucking first aid. enide didn’t even check his pulse or his breathing she just gave up!!

- FORCED MARRIAGE PLOT?????

- PERCEIVED ZOMBIE PLOT??????????

- not even gonna comment on the last part (with the joy of the court) tbh it was fun and erec was actually nice to his wife and that’s all i got for you

- on a whump note, i did appreciate that this one actually let erec be tangibly damaged by his wounds and gave him time to recover, i liked the inclusion of how weak he was. apart from erec, h o l y s h i t some of the injuries in that book. oh my god some of the injuries and deaths had me genuinely staring slack jawed at the page wdym he cut people in half or speared through their eye until their brain fell out the back what?? huh??? excuse me????

[martianbugsbunny]

why is Sir Kei such a bitch lmao

[ghost-bison]

i just had a flashback of 7th grade back when i was so obsessed with teen wolf and we had to write a short story about this book called the knight with the lion by chrétien de troyes, and i said the knight was surrounded by wolves and one of them was called derek. teacher thought it was very funny and gave me an a+ but she never knew i was just deranged. or how i wanted to make a derek hale blanket burrito and make him hot chocolate. so that's that

[gwydpolls]

Lucian's Library 7

Feel free to suggest never written books you wish you could read.

Some items suggested by impatient readers for still living authors.

[maslimanny]

.. the most delightful and choicest pleasure is that which is hinted at, but never told..!!

[fallensapphires]

Mythology: Sir Percival

Any wise man fears open spitefulness, whether it be in seriousness or in jest.

[good--merits-accumulated]

HELLO.

[empress-leo]

Yeah Geoffrey, who would ever include something like that?

[negreabsolut]

El conte del Greal, de Chrétien de Troyes, té elements que en demostren l'antiguitat més enllà del relat medieval que és. És una llegenda molt antiga, de les poquíssimes que ens han arribat d'uns temps realment pretèrits.

[queer-ragnelle]

If anything, Arthurian Legend could do with more adultery. When does Enid get to cheat on Geraint?

[evedaser]

ah yes, the plight of yvain's life. scheduling conflicts

[martianbugsbunny]

if nobody else is going to ship the Chrétien de Troyes version of Sir Gawain and Sir Kei then I will

[lolochaponnay]

[fallout-lou-begas]

Do you have any book recommendations that feature mean lesbians?

Manhunt by gretchen felker-martin might be a great book for you if you're interested in the depths of trans dyke drama in the gruesome, gender-plague-stricken post-apocalypse