The Arthurian Romances of Chrétien de Troyes: Once and Future Fictions by Donald Maddox (review)

Book Reviews Donald Maddox. T h e A r t h u r i a n R o m a n c e s o f C h r é t i e n d e T r o y e s : O n c e a n d F u t u r e F i c t i o n s . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xi + 180. This sensitively written book has many merits, not the least of which is its author’s con­ viction that Chrétien’s romances can best be seen as the constituent parts of an oeuvre that derives coherence from inter- and intratextual linkage. Maddox’s main focus is on Chrétien’s depiction and treatment of custom, which he sees as lending unity to the œuvre at the same time as it reveals subtle shifts and modulations in the poet’s attitude towards feudal institutions and the chivalric/courtly ethos. In this respect—and others—each of Chrétien’s romances explores a different problem area of the Arthurian world as an articu­ lation of the crisis that informed late 12th-century society. By examining Chrétien’s rela­ tionship to earlier Arthurian tradition, Maddox also shows how his romances are the first sophisticated and self-consciously literary incarnations of material that had hitherto been preserved either orally or (in writing) as pseudo-history. This shift in artistic manner of representation goes hand-in-hand with a clear movement away from the depiction of stable and vigorous society to the portrayal of a troubled and disrupted one. Already at the begin­ ning of Erec et Enide, Arthur is shown to be paralyzed by his inflexible insistence on main­ taining a custom originating in his father’s time (which Maddox calls “ the Pandragonian legacy,” 33). Cligés also rejects earlier tradition in its radical rewriting of the Mordred epi­ sode from Wace’s Brut so as to block the usual closure of the story. In the Charrete, Chrétien explores the ramifications and potentially deleterious consequences for Arthurian society of the evil manipulation of “ customal” procedure from without, by Meleagant, rather than merely showing the disruption it causes when effected from within. In Yvain, Arthur unhesitatingly uses compromise as a means of dealing with those who would abuse custom, while the hero reconciles custom and justice; ultimately, however, Yvain chooses to be the “ voluntary agent of love” (p. 81) rather than a slave to custom. The Conte du Graal is unquestionably Chrétien’s most complex and puzzling romance, not only because of its unfinished state, but also because of its “ Doppelroman” structure. Both Perceval and Gauvain uphold constructive customs of the kingdom of Logres and abolish destruc­ tive ones that threaten individual and social harmony. The final diptych shows on one side Gauvain, leader of a reincarnation of the temporal Arthurian order with its constant strug­ gle between good and evil (which question Chrétien often explores through use and abuse of custom) and, on the other, Perceval, whose family of Grail guardians lives in a selfimposed spiritual exile under the New Law. Despite its open ending, the Conte du Graal portrays a world dominated by crisis rather than merely subject to it; it is a world quite dif­ ferent to that of Erec et Enide. Donald Maddox’s book does justice both to the subtleties of Chrétien’s art and to his evolving views of (Arthurian) society; it is a fine and convincing “customal” reading of Chrétien’s romances, individually and collectively, that every Arthurian will want to have. K e i t h B u s b y University o f Oklahoma VOL. XXXIII, NO. 4 101 ...