Cligès / Edition 1

by Chrétien de Troyes, Burton Raffel

Overview

In this extraordinarily fine translation of Cligès, the second of five surviving Arthurian poems by twelfth-century French poet Chrétien de Troyes, Burton Raffel captures the liveliness, innovative spirit, and subtle intentions of the original work. In this poem, Chrétien creates his most artful plot and paints the most starkly medieval portraits of any of his romances. The world he describes has few of the safeguards and protections of civilization: battles are brutal and merciless, love is anguished and desperate. Cligès tells the story of the unhappy Fenice, trapped in a marriage of constraint to the emperor of Constantinople. Fenice feigns death, then awakens to a new, happy life with her lover. Enormously popular in their own time, each of Chrétien's great verse romances is a fast-paced psychologically oriented narrative. In a rational and realistic manner, Chrétien probes the inner workings of his characters and the world they live in, evoking the people, their customs, and their values in clear, emotionally charged verse. Cligès is filled with Chrétien's barbs and bawdiness, his humor and his pleasure, his affection and his contempt. It is the unmistakable work of a brilliantly individualistic poet, brought to modern English readers by Raffel's poetic translation in a metric form invented specifically to reflect Chrétien's narrative speed and tone.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300070217
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	07/21/1997
Series:	Chretien de Troyes Romances S
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ruth Harwood Cline is a research associate in the department of history at Georgetown University.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledments	vii
	Introduction	ix
	Cliges
	Prologue	1
	King Arthur's Court	2
	Love Laments	13
	England and Knighthood	31
	The Siege of Windsor	36
	Alexander's Wedding	65
	The Birth of Cliges	69
	Alexander's Settlement	71
	A German Marriage	77
	The Cologne Tournament	83
	Thessala's Sorcery	87
	Alis's Wedding	94
	Fenice's Abduction and Return	99
	Cliges Departs for Britain	123
	The Wallingford Tournament	133
	Cliges Returns to Greece	147
	Avowal and Plans	150
	The Empress's Illness	164
	The Tower	179
	Notes	197
	Bibliography	209

Editorial Reviews

Her work constitutes the finest poetic translations now available of Chrétien's romances.

Arthuriana

Rhyming vocabulary that sustains the narrative flow and ambience of the Arthurian universe . . . An extraordinary work that represents laudable achievement.

South Atlantic Review

"Rhyming vocabulary that sustains the narrative flow and ambience of the Arthurian universe . . . An extraordinary work that represents laudable achievement."--South Atlantic Review

"Her work constitutes the finest poetic translations now available of Chrétien's romances."--Arthuriana

From the Publisher