Erec and Enide

by Chrétien de Troyes and Chretien DeTroyes

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520073460
• ISBN13: 9780520073463
• Release Date: December 1992
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Erec and Enide

I am not a scholar. But I am a student these twenty years of Medieval history. I have studied Welsh, Scot, Irish and English Medieval history; in addition, I have read books and materials concerning the politics and the culture, and the faith and the myths. Based on this background, I wish to express how very much I thoroughly enjoyed reading Erec and Enide. Ruth Harwood Cline's English translation of this twelfth century poem, written by Chretien de Troyes, touches our senses by its rhythms and rhymes in the rhythmic beat this produces in the poem. Cline's translation also tickles our intellect because through it we can read the ecclesiastical elements and classical motifs. The Celtic legend, Griselda, which I have not read and is mentioned in the introduction, forms the skeleton of Erec and Enide's story. Cline further provides a history background for the poem within the introduction and the notes section. I noticed the Arthurian legend and the Christian symbolism portrayed through the characters of Erec, Enide and King Arthur. I also noticed the "hero's journey." (See The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell)Each test proved both Erec and Enide more worthy of attaining their goal with the final test being the "Court of Joy." This is the first of Chretien de Troyes' poems and I highly recommend it.

The first and one of the best

Chretien de Troyes invented the Arthurian romance with Erec and Enide. It was the first of what would soon come to be a genre unto itself. Tales of King Arthur and his knights are still popular after centuries of retelling, and Chretien de Troyes is responsible for many of the stories as we know them. Erec and Enide, the earliest of his surviving works, is a story about all the things we recognize as Arthurian--honor, chivalry, love, and courage. When the poem begins, Erec is a young knight at Arthur's court and heir to his father's throne. When an unknown knight humiliates one of Guinevere's handmaidens during a hunt, Erec follows the knight, his lady, and their cruel dwarf home. There he meets an old man with a beautiful daughter, Enide. They come from ancient nobility but are no impoverished, and the girl can afford nothing but a ragged tunic to wear. The man tells him about a yearly ritual enacted there, where a fine hawk is placed on a perch and only the man with the most beautiful lady can dare to take it. The arrogant young knight from the day before has won several years in a row. Erec, of course, takes Enide with him to the ritual and, because of Enide's superior beauty, denies the knight the hawk. The knight is furious and challenges Erec to combat, which Erec wins. The father of the girl is so overjoyed that he gives her to Erec as his bride, and the two fall madly in love. So much in love, in fact, that Erec is soon criticized by many for staying at home in bed when he should be looking to chivalry. After overhearing complaints among the other knights, one night Enide accidentally speaks of her worry about Erec's reputation. Erec is angry and determines to prove himself. He immediately saddles his horse, has Enide follow suit, and orders her to ride ahead of himself and not speak. They set out with no specific destination in mind. Enide is understandably upset. For the rest of the poem, Erec saves Enide from one predicament after another--three bandits, five bandits, giants, pandering nobles, and would-be assassins. It is never clear whether Erec is proving himself or proving Enide's loyalty, but in the end, when Erec is believed to be dead, only to regain consciousness and kill an overeager suitor, the two are reconciled to each other. It is then that the poem moves from a string of episodes to a moving and deep symbolic tale that parallels Erec and Enide's own. In another kingdom there is a man trapped in an enchanted garden by his beloved after swearing to do whatever she pleases. In fear that he will leave her, she has made him swear an oath that he will not leave the garden until someone challenges him to combat that he cannot beat. Dozens have tried, and all failed. Erec is victorious, and the man and his lover are set free of the garden. This, in part, saves Erec and Enide from becoming a tedious, episodic story without a point. The poem--just under 7,000 lines long--is so carefully constructed and unified that a second

A Poetic Translation

Since about the middle of the 20th century, it has become increasingly difficult to find poetic translations of long poems. This trend has recently been reversing, with some excellent translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey -- and Ruth Harwood Cline's translations of Troyes' works joins this new and welcome trend. Most reviews and reviewers will concentrate on the plot -- I want to focus on the translation itself. For too long there has been a philosophy of translation that does not see any value in translating poems in the forms in which they were written. With longer poems especially, more "literal" and plot-driven prose translations have been the norm. But prose is not how these works were written, and it is not how they were meant to be read or heard. They are poems, and only a poetic translation will be able to communicate the full meaning of the poem being translated. Meaning in a poem lies not just in the plot and characters, or even in the particular words used -- though all of this is true -- but also in the rhythms and rhymes, the music, of the poem. Cline's poetic translation thus translates too the music of the poems she translates. We get the full beauty of the works only when we read them the way they were meant to be read: as poems. One hopes Cline continues to translate poems of this period into English. And now, for a slight aside: Do not read Cervantes' "Don Quixote" until you have read all of Troyes' works, for you will miss almost all the jokes and the full satirical impact of the novel.

Sprightly trans. of the 1st Arthurian Romance

With Arthurian Romances seemingly always staging a comeback, how nice to have a fast-read, "words-a-poppin" translation of the very first Arthurian Romance, written in Old French around 1170. What I found most intriquing was that the book essentially wrestles with the ways in which men and women define themselves when becoming partners. Erec's rather pig-headed forcing of Enide to lead the way in the forest and never speak to him has odd contemporary overtones. But they are sweet compared to the couple they meet in Erec's final quest in the book - wait until you find out who "The Joy of the Court" is. Burton Raffel's translation, even if you don't like poetry, reads like a smooth silver skate. I gave the book a "9" instead of "10" because it doesn't have any illustrations. I know it's a University Press, but come on folks, with a story about knights couldn't you throw in at least one old woodcut or something