"[G] Four Arthurian Romances" - читать интересную книгу автора (DeTroyes Chretien)

that the story embodies the same motive as the widespread tale of
the deception practised upon Solomon by his wife, and that
Chretien's source, as he himself claims, was literary (cf. Gaston
Paris in "Journal des Savants", 1902, pp. 641-655). The scene
where Fenice feigns death in order to rejoin her lover is a
parallel of many others in literary history, and will, of course,
suggest the situation in Romeo and Juliet. This romance well
illustrates the drawing power of Arthur's court as a literary
centre, and its use as a rallying-point for courteous knights of
whatever extraction. The poem has been termed an "Anti-Tristan",
because of its disparaging reference to the love of Tristan and
Iseut, which, it is generally supposed, had been narrated by
Chretien in his earlier years. Next may come "Lancelot", with
its significant dedication to the Countess of Champagne. Of all
the poet's work, this tale of the rescue of Guinevere by her
lover seems to express most closely the ideals of Marie's court
ideals in which devotion and courtesy but thinly disguise free
love. "Yvain" is a return to the poet's natural bent, in an
episodical romance, while "Perceval" crowns his production with
its pure and exalted note, though without a touch of that
religious mysticism which later marked Wolfram yon Eschenbach's
"Parzival". "Guillaime d'Angleterre" is a pseudo-historical
romance of adventure in which the worldly distresses and the
final reward of piety are conventionally exposed. It is
uninspired, its place is difficult to determine, and its
authorship is questioned by some. It is aside from the Arthurian
material, and there is no clue to its place in the evolution of
Chretien's art, if indeed it be his work.

A few words must be devoted to Chretien's place in the history of
mediaeval narrative poetry. The heroic epic songs of France,
devoted either to the conflict of Christendom under the
leadership of France against the Saracens, or else to the strife
and rivalry of French vassals among themselves, had been current
for perhaps a century before our poet began to write. These
epic poems, of which some three score have survived, portray a
warlike, virile, unsentimental feudal society, whose chief
occupation was fighting, and whose dominant ideals were faith in
God, loyalty to feudal family ties, and bravery in battle.
Woman's place is comparatively obscure, and of love-making there
is little said. It is a poetry of vigorous manhood, of
uncompromising morality, and of hard knocks given and taken for
God, for Christendom, and the King of France. This poetry is
written in ten- or twelve- sylabble verses grouped, at first in
assonanced, later in rhymed, "tirades" of unequal length. It was
intended for a society which was still homogeneous, and to it at
the outset doubtless all classes of the population listened with
equal interest. As poetry it is monotonous, without sense of
proportion, padded to facilitate memorisation by professional
reciters, and unadorned by figure, fancy, or imagination. Its