Erec and Enide
Encyclopedia
Erec and Enide is the first of Chrétien de Troyes
' five romance
poems, completed around 1170. It is one of three completed works by the author. Consisting of about 7000 lines of Old French
, the poem is the earliest known Arthurian romance
in any language, though the Welsh
Culhwch and Olwen
likely predates its surviving manuscripts.
played a primary role in the formation of Arthurian romance
and is influential up until the latest romances. Erec et Enide features many of the common elements of Arthurian romance
, such as Arthurian characters, the knightly quest, and women or love as a catalyst to action. While it is not the first story to use conventions of the Arthurian characters and setting, Chrétien de Troyes
is credited with the invention of the Arthurian romance
genre by establishing expectation with his contemporary audience based on its prior knowledge of the subjects.
Popular in its own day, the poem was translated into several other languages, notably German
in Hartmann von Aue
's Erec and Welsh
in Geraint and Enid, one of the Three Welsh Romances
included in the Mabinogion
. Many authors explicitly acknowledge their debt to Chrétien, while others, such as the author of Hunbaut, betray their influence by suspiciously emphatic assurance that they are not plagiarizing.
s in rhyme
d couplet
s. A prose version was made in the 15th century. The first modern edition dates from 1856 by Immanuel Bekker, followed by an edition in 1890 by Wendelin Foerster.
Approximately the first quarter of the work recounts the tale of Erec
son of Lac and his marriage to Enide
, an impoverished noble girl of Lalut. An unarmored Erec is keeping Guinevere
company while other knights participate in a stag hunt near Cardigan
when a strange knight and his dwarf approach the queen and treat her servant roughly. At the Queen's orders, Erec follows the knight, Yder
, to a far off town where he meets and falls in love with Enide. Erec defeats Yder, returns to Arthur's court and marries his love.
The central half of the poem begins some time later when rumors spread that Erec has come to neglect his knightly duties. He overhears Enide crying over this and orders her to prepare for a journey to parts unknown. He commands her to be silent throughout, but she disobeys several times to warn him of danger. Erec defeats a string of knights and captures a string of horses, overcomes two counts who in turn attempt to kill him and have Enide, and, after defeating him in a joust, makes a friend of Guivret, an Irish lord with family connections to Pembroke
and Scotland.
The last quarter of the poem adds another episode, in which Erec and Enide set free prisoners and meet relations, before in time they are crowned King and Queen of Nantes
in a lavishly-described ceremony.
and Aeneas
in Virgil
's Aeneid
. Enide does not lose her lover or commit suicide but many connections can be shown between Erec’s gradual maturing process throughout the story and Aeneas’s similar progress.
Chrétien de Troyes
Chrétien de Troyes was a French poet and trouvère who flourished in the late 12th century. Perhaps he named himself Christian of Troyes in contrast to the illustrious Rashi, also of Troyes...
' five romance
Romance (genre)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
poems, completed around 1170. It is one of three completed works by the author. Consisting of about 7000 lines of Old French
Old French
Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...
, the poem is the earliest known Arthurian romance
Romance (genre)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
in any language, though the Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
Culhwch and Olwen
Culhwch and Olwen
Culhwch and Olwen is a Welsh tale about a hero connected with Arthur and his warriors that survives in only two manuscripts: a complete version in the Red Book of Hergest, ca. 1400, and a fragmented version in the White Book of Rhydderch, ca. 1325. It is the longest of the surviving Welsh prose...
likely predates its surviving manuscripts.
Importance
Chrétien de TroyesChrétien de Troyes
Chrétien de Troyes was a French poet and trouvère who flourished in the late 12th century. Perhaps he named himself Christian of Troyes in contrast to the illustrious Rashi, also of Troyes...
played a primary role in the formation of Arthurian romance
Romance (genre)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
and is influential up until the latest romances. Erec et Enide features many of the common elements of Arthurian romance
Romance (genre)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
, such as Arthurian characters, the knightly quest, and women or love as a catalyst to action. While it is not the first story to use conventions of the Arthurian characters and setting, Chrétien de Troyes
Chrétien de Troyes
Chrétien de Troyes was a French poet and trouvère who flourished in the late 12th century. Perhaps he named himself Christian of Troyes in contrast to the illustrious Rashi, also of Troyes...
is credited with the invention of the Arthurian romance
Romance (genre)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
genre by establishing expectation with his contemporary audience based on its prior knowledge of the subjects.
Popular in its own day, the poem was translated into several other languages, notably German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
in Hartmann von Aue
Hartmann von Aue
Hartmann von Aue was a Middle High German poet. He introduced the courtly romance into German literature and, with Wolfram von Eschenbach and Gottfried von Strassburg, was one of the three great epic poets of Middle High German literature...
's Erec and Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
in Geraint and Enid, one of the Three Welsh Romances
Three Welsh Romances
The Three Welsh Romances are three Middle Welsh tales associated with the Mabinogion. They are versions of Arthurian tales that also appear in the work of Chrétien de Troyes. Critics have debated whether the Welsh Romances are based on Chrétien's poems or if they derive from a shared original...
included in the Mabinogion
Mabinogion
The Mabinogion is the title given to a collection of eleven prose stories collated from medieval Welsh manuscripts. The tales draw on pre-Christian Celtic mythology, international folktale motifs, and early medieval historical traditions...
. Many authors explicitly acknowledge their debt to Chrétien, while others, such as the author of Hunbaut, betray their influence by suspiciously emphatic assurance that they are not plagiarizing.
Manuscripts and editions
Erec and Enide has come down to the present day in seven manuscripts and various fragments. The poem comprises 6,878 octosyllableOctosyllable
The octosyllable or octosyllabic verse is a line of verse with eight syllables. It is equivalent to tetrameter verse in iambs or trochees in languages with a stress accent. It is often used in French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese poetry...
s in rhyme
Rhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.-Etymology:...
d couplet
Couplet
A couplet is a pair of lines of meter in poetry. It usually consists of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter.While traditionally couplets rhyme, not all do. A poem may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets with a meter of iambic pentameter are called heroic...
s. A prose version was made in the 15th century. The first modern edition dates from 1856 by Immanuel Bekker, followed by an edition in 1890 by Wendelin Foerster.
Plot
Erec and Enide displays the themes of love and chivalry that Chrétien continues in his later work. Tests play an important part in character development and marital fidelity. Erec's testing of Enide is not condemned in the fictive context of the story, especially when his behaviour is contrasted with some of the more despicable characters, such as Oringle of Limors. Nevertheless Enide's faithful disobedience of his command to silence saves his life.Approximately the first quarter of the work recounts the tale of Erec
Erec
Sir Erec, the son of King Lac, is a Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend. He features in numerous Arthurian tales , but he is most famous as the protagonist in Chrétien de Troyes' first romance, Erec and Enide...
son of Lac and his marriage to Enide
Enide
Enide or Enid is a character from Arthurian legend. She is Erec's wife in Chrétien de Troyes' Erec and Enide, and Geraint's in the Welsh Romance Geraint and Enid, analogous to Chrétien's version...
, an impoverished noble girl of Lalut. An unarmored Erec is keeping Guinevere
Guinevere
Guinevere was the legendary queen consort of King Arthur. In tales and folklore, she was said to have had a love affair with Arthur's chief knight Sir Lancelot...
company while other knights participate in a stag hunt near Cardigan
Cardigan, Ceredigion
Cardigan is a town in the county of Ceredigion in Mid Wales. It lies on the estuary of the River Teifi at the point where Ceredigion meets Pembrokeshire. It was the county town of the pre-1974 county of Cardiganshire. It is the second largest town in Ceredigion. The town's population was 4,203...
when a strange knight and his dwarf approach the queen and treat her servant roughly. At the Queen's orders, Erec follows the knight, Yder
Edern ap Nudd
Edern ap Nudd is a warrior of Arthur's court in early Arthurian tradition. As the son of Nudd , he is the brother of Gwyn, Creiddylad and Owain ap Nudd...
, to a far off town where he meets and falls in love with Enide. Erec defeats Yder, returns to Arthur's court and marries his love.
The central half of the poem begins some time later when rumors spread that Erec has come to neglect his knightly duties. He overhears Enide crying over this and orders her to prepare for a journey to parts unknown. He commands her to be silent throughout, but she disobeys several times to warn him of danger. Erec defeats a string of knights and captures a string of horses, overcomes two counts who in turn attempt to kill him and have Enide, and, after defeating him in a joust, makes a friend of Guivret, an Irish lord with family connections to Pembroke
Pembroke, Pembrokeshire
Pembroke is an historic settlement and former county town of Pembrokeshire in west Wales. The town and the county derive their name from that of the cantref of Penfro: Pen = "head" or "end", and bro = "region", "country", "land", and so it means essentially "Land's End".-History:The main point of...
and Scotland.
The last quarter of the poem adds another episode, in which Erec and Enide set free prisoners and meet relations, before in time they are crowned King and Queen of Nantes
Nantes
Nantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 8th with over 800,000 inhabitants....
in a lavishly-described ceremony.
Literary forebears
Wittig has compared aspects of the story to that of Dido, Queen of CarthageCarthage
Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...
and Aeneas
Aeneas
Aeneas , in Greco-Roman mythology, was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam's second cousin, once removed. The journey of Aeneas from Troy , which led to the founding a hamlet south of...
in Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
's Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...
. Enide does not lose her lover or commit suicide but many connections can be shown between Erec’s gradual maturing process throughout the story and Aeneas’s similar progress.
Sources
- Adler, Alfred (1945). "Sovereignty as the Principle of Unity in Chrétien's "Erec'". PMLA Volume 60 (4), pp. 917–936.
- Busby, Keith (1987). "The Characters and the Setting". In Norris J. Lacy, Douglas Kelly, Keith Busby, The Legacy of Chrétien De Troyes vol. I, pp. 57–89. Amsterdam: Faux Titre.
- Chrétien de Troyes; Owen, D. D. R. (translator) (1988). Arthurian Romances. New York: Everyman's LibraryEveryman's LibraryEveryman's Library is a series of reprinted classic literature currently published in hardback by Random House. It was originally an imprint of J. M. Dent , who continue to publish Everyman Classics in paperback.J. M. Dent and Company began to publish the series in 1906...
. ISBN 0-460-87389-X. - Lacy, Norris J. (1991). "Chrétien de Troyes". In Norris J. Lacy, The New Arthurian Encyclopedia, pp. 88–91. New York: Garland. ISBN 0-8240-4377-4.
- Lacy, Norris (1987). "Preface". In Norris J. Lacy, Douglas Kelly, Keith Busby, The Legacy of Chrétien De Troyes vol. I, pp. 1–3. Amsterdam: Faux Titre.
- Lacy, Norris (1987). "The Typology of Arthurian Romance". In Norris J. Lacy, Douglas Kelly, Keith Busby, The Legacy of Chrétien De Troyes vol. I, pp. 33–56. Amsterdam: Faux Titre.
- Mandel, Jerome (1977). "The Ethical Context of Erec's Character". The French Review Volume 50 (3), pp. 421–428.
- Wittig, Joseph (1970). "The Aeneas-Dido Allusion in Chrétien's Erec et Enide." Comparative Literature Volume 22 (3), pp. 237-253.