Four Arthurian Romances: Cliges

It tells the story of the knight Cliges and his love for his uncles wife, Fenice. Because of the storys de-romanticized depiction of adultery, it has been called a criticism or parody of the Tristan and Isolde romances. Cliges scholar Lucie Polak not only verifies the Tristan and Isolde reworking found in the text, but also suggests that Cliges may be modeled after Ovids character Narcissus. Chretiens works include five major poems in rhyming eight-syllable couplets. Four of these are complete; Erec and Enide (c. 1170); Cliges (c. 1176), and Yvain, the Knight of the Lion and Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, both written simultaneously between 1177 and 1181. Chretiens final romance was Perceval, the Story of the Grail, written between 1181 and 1190, but left unfinished, though some scholars have disputed this. This volume includes a comprehensive set of linked footnotes to deepen the reading experience.