CHRETIEN'S WORKS AS A ‘SOURCE’ FOR LATER ARTHURIAN POETS

A continuation to Labouderie's version of the Chastoiement d'un père à son fils contains two substantial passages from older texts; the first derives from Partonopeus, whilst the second has been taken from the fragmentary Arthurian romance of Hunbaut (lines 2414–640). The author of the Chastoiement has incorporated the Arthurian poet's words into his own work with only minor changes and abbreviations. Similarly, extracts from Wace's Brut, the Lai de Narcissus, the Lai du conseil, Athis et Prophilias, Partonopeus, Erec, Yvain and Perceval reappear in Cristal et Clarie, a romance of adventure. Both these works exemplify a technique of composition which by modern standards one might justifiably call plagiarism, but without wishing thereby to vilify the procedure as objectionable and as both legally and morally reprehensible. There are after all certain qualitative distinctions to be observed in the type of such borrowings made by other authors and in their evaluation. It is well known that Jean de Meung incorporates various translations and reworkings of Latin poems into his Roman de la Rose. They could always be readily identified as such by his contemporaries, and they were used in pursuit of a more important goal. Jean de Meung makes no claim that the borrowed passages are the products of his own creativity, but this is precisely what the author of the Chastoiement does when he works 200 lines of an obscure poem, a largely unknown and moreover incomplete Arthurian romance, into his own text.