1 - Introduction

Summary

In the decades just before and after 1200, the art of storytelling in the Old French vernacular went through a period of rapid innovation. In the second half of the twelfth century, Chrétien de Troyes created the first Arthurian romances and achieved the genre's highest quality right from the start. His tales of love and adventures became models of composition, yet the genre developed further, ranging from Chrétien's one-hero verse romances of some 7,000 lines to far more elaborate texts in prose, like the Prose Lancelot (circa 1215) and the ensuing Lancelot-Grail Cycle (1215–1235), which describe the adventures of many knights over a long period of time. In these panoramic and chronicle-like texts, the simultaneity of the knights’ adventures is suggested by means of the alternation of the storylines (narrative threads) of the protagonists. This is a special narrative technique, called interlace (entrelacement). While Chrétien had already used this technique in his Conte du Graal, alternating the narration of Perceval's and Gauvain's adventures, it reached its full potential in the Prose Lancelot and especially in its final section, Part 3. The narrative technique of interlace in the third part of the Lancelot is the subject of this book.

The Prose Lancelot is the central text in the Lancelot-Grail or ‘Vulgate’ Cycle. This cycle was the most popular Arthurian romance in the middle ages, if the number of manuscripts is an indication of a text's popularity. It contains the Arthurian story from Christ's Passion and the creation of the Holy Grail to the demise of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table, and Lancelot's death and acceptance into heaven. The full cycle consists of five texts: Estoire del Saint Graal, Estoire de Merlin (Merlin and Suite-Vulgate du Merlin), Lancelot, Queste del Saint Graal, and Mort le Roi Artu. The Lancelot covers Lancelot’s biography from his birth to the start of the Grail quest and has three parts. The first (‘Enfances/Galehot’) describes his childhood and early career as a knight: his abduction by the Lady of the Lake, his life and training as an anonymous boy in her secret realm, his arrival at court and falling in love with the queen, the discovery of his name, the battles against and friendship with Galehot, until the latter's death (Part 1).