Erec and Enide

Description

From Library Journal
A new verse translation makes this first Arthurian romance (composed around A.D. 1170), also the first of five extant works by French court poet Chretien de Troyes, a pleasure to read. Erec and Enide, newly married and lost in erotic, conjugal bliss, are brought back to reality when gossip suggests that Erec, son of a king, prefers life at home to the existence of a fearless, heroic knight. Celtic legend, classical motifs, and ecclesiastical elements are masterfully interwoven in this tale, whose colloquial translation brings to life the clashing sounds of battle, de Troyes's multiple poetic tones and colorful expressions, and the rhyme and meter of the original's lively octosyllabios. This is not a literal translation along the lines of Carleton W. Carroll's (Garland, 1987), yet it remains scholarly and mindful of the vocabulary of de Troyes's day. Both scholars and general readers will surely enjoy this story of the quest for honor, glory, and the Arthurian way.
- Danielle Mihram, Univ. of Southern California Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
In this new verse translation of one of the great works of French literature, Dorothy Gilbert captures the vivacity, wit, and grace of the first known Arthurian romance. Erec and Enide is the story of the quest and coming of age of a young knight, an illustrious member of Arthur's court, who must learn to balance the demands of a masculine public life--tests of courage, skill, adaptability, and mature judgment--with the equally urgent demands of the private world of love and marriage. We see his wife, Enide, develop as an exemplar of chivalry in the female, not as an eBookCN, but as a brave, resolute, and wise woman. Composed ca. 1170, Erec and Enide masterfully combines elements of Celtic legend, classical and ecclesiastical learning, and French medieval culture and ideals.
In choosing to write in rhymed octosyllabic couplets-Chrétien's prosodic pattern-Dorothy Gilbert has tried to reproduce what so often gets lost in prose or free verse translations: the precise and delicate meter; the rhyme, with its rich possibilities for emphasis, nuance, puns and jokes; and the "mantic power" implicit in proper names. The result will enable the scholar who cannot read Old French, the student of literature, and the general reader to gain a more sensitive and immediate understanding of the form and spirit of Chrétien's poetry, and to appreciate the more Chrétien's great contribution to European literature.

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