French Arthurian Romance

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Edward Donald Kennedy (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.01: French Writing and Culture: Old French to the Middle Ages , 500-1400.
Vol. editors: Marianne Ailes (University of Bristol), Matthew Siôn Lampitt (University of Cambridge), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Domains

Literature Topic
Movements, styles and periods (literature)

Dates

Date of occurrence c.1150- c.1450

Places

France (Location)

Resources

Recommended Reading

Chrétien de Troyes

Chrétien de Troyes wrote the first romances about King Arthur during the second half of the 12th century, probably in the following order: Erec et Enide, Cligés (or Cligès), Le Chevalier de la charrette (Lancelot), Le Chevalier auLion (Yvain), and Le Conte du Graal (Perceval). They would have been intended for readers/listeners in France and England, where Anglo-Norman was the language of the aristocracy for about 300 years after the Conquest. Erec et Enide and Cligés, in particular, are associated with England through geographical and political allusions, and the former is often dated ca. 1170 because details concerning E…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

6611 words

Citation: Kennedy, Edward Donald. "French Arthurian Romance". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 September 2014 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19348, accessed 23 April 2024.]

View recommended reading for this article

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here