Arthurian Romances

Jul 29, 2025 2:25 AM

Author:Chrétien de Troyes,William Kibler,Carleton Carroll,William Kibler,William Kibler

Arthurian Romances

Taking the legends surrounding King Arthur and weaving in new psychological elements of personal desire and courtly manner, Chrétien de Troyes fashioned a new form of medieval Romance. The Knight of the Cart is the first telling of the adulterous relationship between Lancelot and Arthur's Queen Guinevere, and in The Knight with the Lion Yvain neglects his bride in his quest for greater glory. Erec and Enide explores a knight's conflict between love and honour, Cligés exalts the possibility of pure love outside marriage, while the haunting The Story of the Grail chronicles the legendary quest. Rich in symbolism, these evocative tales combine closely observed detail with fantastic adventure to create a compelling world that profoundly influenced Malory, and are the basis of the Arthurian legends we know today.

Reviews

The wit, depth and wickedness of this resonant novel suggest a happy synthesis of Dickens, Malcolm Lowry and Philip Roth... This is a very fine work

—— The Times

A rich, rude, eccentric saga about the Gursky dynasty that crossbreeds Jewish and Canadian myths and is full of splendid comic detail

—— Observer

Vast, chaotic, vigorously imagined and ambitiously freighted

—— Independent

A major work of rich complexity

—— Sunday Telegraph

It is passionate, it has a thickness of living about it, and it is made to blaze every now and then with an uncommonly fine bit of worldly wisdom, memorably delivered out of the side of the mouth

—— Guardian

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