Yvain, the Knight of the Lion

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Yvain: The Knight of the Lion
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Yvain, the Knight of the Lion
Arthurian legend

Yvain, the Knight of the Lion (

Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain
.

Synopsis

In the narrative,

Esclados beside a magical storm-making stone in the forest of Brocéliande. Yvain defeats Esclados and falls in love with his widow Laudine. With the aid of Laudine's servant Lunete, Yvain wins his lady and marries her, but Gawain
convinces him to leave Laudine behind to embark on chivalric adventure. Laudine assents but demands he return after one year. Yvain becomes so enthralled in his knightly exploits that he forgets to return to his wife within the allotted time, so she rejects him.

Yvain rescues the lion (Garrett MS 125 fol. 37r, c. 1295)

Yvain goes mad with grief, is cured by a noblewoman, and decides to rediscover himself and find a way to win back Laudine. A lion he rescues from a dragon[1] proves to be a loyal companion and a symbol of knightly virtue, and helps him defeat a mighty giant, three fierce knights, and two demons. After Yvain rescues Lunete from being burned at the stake, she helps Yvain win back his wife, who allows him to return, along with his lion.

History and connections

The opening lines of the Welsh version, Owain (pre 1382) from Jesus College, Oxford (MS 111).

Yvain, the Knight of the Lion was written by

rhymed couplets. Two manuscripts are illustrated, Paris BnF MS fr. 1433 and Princeton University Library Garrett MS 125 (c. 1295), the former incomplete with seven remaining miniatures and the latter with ten. Hindman (1994) discusses these illustrations as reflecting the development of the role of the knight, or the youthful knight-errant, during the transitional period from the high to the late medieval period.[2] The first modern edition was published in 1887 by Wendelin Förster
.

Chrétien's source for the poem is unknown, but the story bears a number of similarities to the

Lot of Lothian.[3] The Life was written by Jocelyn of Furness in c. 1185, and is thus slightly younger than Chrétien's text, but not influenced by it. Jocelyn states that he rewrote the 'life' from an earlier Glasgow legend and an old Gaelic document, so that some elements of the story may originate in a British tradition. The name of the main character Yvain, at least, ultimately harks back to the name of the historical Owain mab Urien (fl. 6th century). Other narrative motifs in Yvain have been convincingly traced to early Celtic lore.[4]

Yvain had a huge impact on the literary world. German poet

Herr Ivan. The Valþjófsstaður door
in Iceland, c. 1200, depicts a version of the Yvain story with a carving of a knight slaying a dragon that threatens a lion; the lion is later shown wearing a rich collar and following the knight, and later still the lion appears to be lying on the grave of the knight.

See also

References

  1. ISBN 0140445218
    .
  2. ISBN 0-226-34156-9, review by M. McIlwain: [1]
    "She uses the motif of the knight, the profession common to all of Chretien's protagonists, to track this change. In each of five chapters she considers how distinct social identities for the knight seem to have dominated the way in which individual texts of Chretien's poems were illustrated, read, and understood."
  3. ^ Duggan, Joseph J. (1987). In Chrétien de Troyes; Burton Raffel, Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, pp. 214–216. Yale University Press.
  4. ^ Nahon 2022.

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

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