Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Manuscripts and manuscript culture
- 2 The troubadours: the Occitan model
- 3 The chanson de geste
- 4 Saints' lives, violence, and community
- 5 Myth and the matière de Bretagne
- 6 Sexuality, shame, and the genesis of romance
- 7 Medieval lyric: the trouvères
- 8 The Grail
- 9 Women authors of the Middle Ages
- 10 Crusades and identity
- 11 Rhetoric and historiography: Villehardouin's La Conquête de Constantinople
- 12 Humour and the obscene
- 13 Travel and orientalism
- 14 Allegory and interpretation
- 15 History and fiction: the narrativity and historiography of the matter of Troy
- 16 Mysticism
- 17 Prose romance
- 18 Rhetoric and theatre
- 19 The rise of metafiction in the late Middle Ages
- 20 What does ‘Renaissance’ mean?
- 21 Sixteenth-century religious writing
- 22 Sixteenth-century poetry
- 23 Sixteenth-century theatre
- 24 Women writers in the sixteenth century
- 25 Sixteenth-century prose narrative
- 26 Sixteenth-century thought
- 27 Sixteenth-century travel writing
- 28 Sixteenth-century margins
- 29 Tragedy: early to mid seventeenth century
- 30 Tragedy: mid to late seventeenth century
- 31 Seventeenth-century comedy
- 32 Seventeenth-century poetry
- 33 Seventeenth-century philosophy
- 34 Seventeenth-century women writers
- 35 Moraliste writing in the seventeenth century
- 36 Seventeenth-century prose narrative
- 37 Seventeenth-century religious writing
- 38 Seventeenth-century margins
- 39 What is Enlightenment?
- 40 The eighteenth-century novel
- 41 The eighteenth-century conte
- 42 Eighteenth-century comic theatre
- 43 Eighteenth-century theatrical tragedy
- 44 Eighteenth-century women writers
- 45 Eighteenth-century philosophy
- 46 Libertinage
- 47 Eighteenth-century travel
- 48 Eighteenth-century margins
- 49 The roman personnel
- 50 Romanticism: art, literature, and history
- 51 Realism
- 52 French poetry, 1793–1863
- 53 Symbolism
- 54 Madness and writing
- 55 Literature and the city in the nineteenth century
- 56 Nineteenth-century travel writing
- 57 Philosophy and ideology in nineteenth-century France
- 58 Naturalism
- 59 Impressionism: art, literature, and history, 1870–1914
- 60 Decadence
- 61 Avant-garde: text and image
- 62 Autobiography
- 63 The modern French novel
- 64 The contemporary French novel
- 65 Existentialism
- 66 Modern French thought
- 67 French drama in the twentieth century
- 68 Twentieth-century poetry
- 69 Francophone writing
- 70 Writing and postcolonial theory
- 71 Travel writing, 1914–2010
- 72 French cinema, 1895–2010
- 73 Writing, memory, and history
- 74 Holocaust writing and film
- 75 Women writers, artists, and filmmakers
- 76 French popular culture and the case of bande dessinée
- 77 Literature, film, and new media
- Select bibliography
- Index
5 - Myth and the matière de Bretagne
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Manuscripts and manuscript culture
- 2 The troubadours: the Occitan model
- 3 The chanson de geste
- 4 Saints' lives, violence, and community
- 5 Myth and the matière de Bretagne
- 6 Sexuality, shame, and the genesis of romance
- 7 Medieval lyric: the trouvères
- 8 The Grail
- 9 Women authors of the Middle Ages
- 10 Crusades and identity
- 11 Rhetoric and historiography: Villehardouin's La Conquête de Constantinople
- 12 Humour and the obscene
- 13 Travel and orientalism
- 14 Allegory and interpretation
- 15 History and fiction: the narrativity and historiography of the matter of Troy
- 16 Mysticism
- 17 Prose romance
- 18 Rhetoric and theatre
- 19 The rise of metafiction in the late Middle Ages
- 20 What does ‘Renaissance’ mean?
- 21 Sixteenth-century religious writing
- 22 Sixteenth-century poetry
- 23 Sixteenth-century theatre
- 24 Women writers in the sixteenth century
- 25 Sixteenth-century prose narrative
- 26 Sixteenth-century thought
- 27 Sixteenth-century travel writing
- 28 Sixteenth-century margins
- 29 Tragedy: early to mid seventeenth century
- 30 Tragedy: mid to late seventeenth century
- 31 Seventeenth-century comedy
- 32 Seventeenth-century poetry
- 33 Seventeenth-century philosophy
- 34 Seventeenth-century women writers
- 35 Moraliste writing in the seventeenth century
- 36 Seventeenth-century prose narrative
- 37 Seventeenth-century religious writing
- 38 Seventeenth-century margins
- 39 What is Enlightenment?
- 40 The eighteenth-century novel
- 41 The eighteenth-century conte
- 42 Eighteenth-century comic theatre
- 43 Eighteenth-century theatrical tragedy
- 44 Eighteenth-century women writers
- 45 Eighteenth-century philosophy
- 46 Libertinage
- 47 Eighteenth-century travel
- 48 Eighteenth-century margins
- 49 The roman personnel
- 50 Romanticism: art, literature, and history
- 51 Realism
- 52 French poetry, 1793–1863
- 53 Symbolism
- 54 Madness and writing
- 55 Literature and the city in the nineteenth century
- 56 Nineteenth-century travel writing
- 57 Philosophy and ideology in nineteenth-century France
- 58 Naturalism
- 59 Impressionism: art, literature, and history, 1870–1914
- 60 Decadence
- 61 Avant-garde: text and image
- 62 Autobiography
- 63 The modern French novel
- 64 The contemporary French novel
- 65 Existentialism
- 66 Modern French thought
- 67 French drama in the twentieth century
- 68 Twentieth-century poetry
- 69 Francophone writing
- 70 Writing and postcolonial theory
- 71 Travel writing, 1914–2010
- 72 French cinema, 1895–2010
- 73 Writing, memory, and history
- 74 Holocaust writing and film
- 75 Women writers, artists, and filmmakers
- 76 French popular culture and the case of bande dessinée
- 77 Literature, film, and new media
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
By the late twelfth century, when Jean Bodel describes contemporary literature as comprising ‘trois materes … de France de Bretaigne et de Ronme la grant’, the ‘matter of Britain’ had clearly distinguished itself from the chansons de geste and romans d'antiquité that he finds more authentic and didactic. He contrasts the matière de Bretagne as pure entertainment, delineating in a stroke the widely disseminated and influential works that take Brittany (construed as Britain as well as the French province) as their inspiration. This includes those that use the blurred geography of Bretagne for local colour (as in the short narrative lais, or quick shorthand allusions in lyric poetry), and romances that evoke such figures as King Arthur, his knights, and Tristan and Iseult. This broad category burgeoned rapidly into a complex metafiction enfolding some of the most memorable literature of the High Middle Ages, beginning in the second half of the twelfth century with Wace's Roman de Brut, the works of Chrétien de Troyes, Marie de France's Lais, and the Tristan romances of Thomas and Béroul. From the late twelfth through the thirteenth century, verse romances proliferate, accompanied by the adaptation and vast expansion of central narratives into prose, principally in the Didot-Perceval, the monumental Vulgate and Post-Vulgate Cycles, and the Prose Tristan. In addition, a host of named and anonymous authors propagate the individual and collective adventures of key characters at Arthur's court, chiefly Gawain (La Mule sans frein; Le Chevalier à l'épée; Hunbaut; La Vengeance Raguidel; L'Âtre périlleux), Perceval (the Continuations; Perlesvaus) and Tristan (La Folie de Berne and La Folie d'Oxford, and in more episodic form embedded in the Donnei des amanz and Gerbert de Montreuil's Continuation of Perceval).
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- The Cambridge History of French Literature , pp. 47 - 56Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011