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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
There can be little doubt that humour is a fundamental characteristic of the genre of Arthurian romance. Indeed, the comic treatment of conventional themes and motifs appears to be not only an attribute of later romance (say, the Chrétien epigones or the prose Tristan) as is sometimes assumed, but an essential element of the genre from the earliest stages of its development. The range of texts examined in the essays included in Vol. XIX of Arthurian Literature once more underlines the wide dissemination of the Arthurian story in medieval and post-medieval Europe, from Ireland to Italy, while the various analyses of the manifestations of comedy put to rest once and for all any notions of romance as a humourless genre. Authors of Arthurian romance, from Chrétien de Troyes to Malory, writing in French, Italian, Middle Dutch, and Middle English, and the creator of a late Irish prose tale, all question the fundamental assumptions of romance and romance values through the medium of comedy. These essays clearly demonstrate that Cervantes and Rabelais were not the first to see the ridicule inherent in the romance world.
In the opening essay, Elizabeth Archibald shows the potential, comic and tragic, in the tradition of recognition scenes in some French and Middle English romances. Christine Ferlampin-Acher argues in her study of a selection of French texts that comedy is closely related to the merveilleux and often proceeds from it. Angelica Rieger draws interesting parallels between Chrétien’s Yvain and the modern comic-strip, showing not only how the episodes featuring the lion would be susceptible of such treatment but also that medieval illuminators already sensed something of the sort.
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