to that of Arthur and his earliest companions (see, e.g., the Welsh Triads, where Tristan is
also the lover of Essylt, King Marc’s wife), may have been elaborated by Celtic
storytellers on the model of a famous Irish elopement tale, the story of Diarmaid and
Grainne; set and developed in Cornwall, at Tintagel, it might have become associated
there with traditions about King Marc. But the subsequent influence of Brittany was
significant, providing, among other motifs, the story of the hero’s parents and the episode
of Tristan and Iseut’s marriage. Other motifs, such as the dragon fight, the search for the
golden-haired princess, and the man torn between two women, can be traced more
generally to popular tales, classical mythology, and other sources.
It was in the Plantagenêt domains, both insular and continental, that Breton and other
Celtic storytellers transmitted the legend to their French counterparts. It was profoundly
remodeled, owing to the demands of a different society—feudalism gave new meaning to
the conflict between love and moral, societal, and religious principles—and a new
cultural and literary context, marked by the ethos of fin’amor and the first manifestations
of troubadour poetry and the courtly romance. From allusions in troubadour lyrics (ca.
1130–50), iconographic testimony, and references to sources, it is possible to deduce a
sort of standard, or “vulgate,” version of the lovers’ story, organized along biographical
lines and relating the hero’s youthful adventures, from his birth to the scene of the love
potion; love’s trials, from the potion to the return from the Forest of Morois; and the
hero’s exile, marriage, return trips to Cornwall, and Liebestod. More satisfactory than
Bédier’s rigid archetypal reconstitution, the notion of a “vulgate” version (Béroul’s
estoire?) explains both the relative stability of the main story and the important variations
from poet to poet. It is important to recall that the famous pun on Tristan/triste ‘sad’
cannot go back beyond the “French” stage of the legend.
The only complete 12th-century version based on the “vulgate” is that in Middle High
German by Eilhart von Oberg (ca. 1170–80). Béroul’s fragment (ca. 1180), the first part
of which is closely parallel to Eilhart, is also faithful to the “vulgate,” unlike that of
Thomas d’Angleterre (ca. 1175), which moves consciously away from it. Thomas’s
version, summarized in the Norwegian prose of Brother Robert (ca. 1130), was freely
adapted ca. 1210 in Gottfried von Strassburg’s unfinished poem. The motif of Tristan
returning to see Iseut was used again in the two anonymous Folies and in Marie de
France’s Chievrefoil. Some elements of the legend reappeared in the Donnei des amanz
(ca. 1200) and in Gerbert de Montreuil’s continuation of Chrétien de Troyes’s Perceval.
The 13th-century Prose Tristan is the only complete version of the legend preserved in
French.
But the influence of the Tristan story goes well beyond the group of texts that narrate
it and the adaptations that it inspired in nearly every western language. Accepted,
attacked (notably by Chrétien), reformulated to accord with the courtly ethic (in the Prose
Tristan), this legend of a fatal passion became one of the primary representations of love,
influencing western thought up to our own time. The lovers were frequently represented
in medieval art, especially in ivories and manuscript miniatures. Thirty-five scenes from
the Tristan legend are illustrated on the Chertsey Abbey tiles (ca. 1270).
Emmanuèle Baumgartner
[See also: BÉROUL; DONNEI DES AMANZ; FOLIES TRISTAN; MARIE DE
FRANCE; PROSE TRISTAN; THOMAS D’ANGLETERRE]
The Encyclopedia 1755