Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Dedication
- Introduction
- Part I Medieval performers of narrative and their art
- Part II Medieval performance and the book
- Part III Performability and medieval narrative genres
- Part IV Perspectives from contemporary performers
- Afterword
- Works cited
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 October 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Dedication
- Introduction
- Part I Medieval performers of narrative and their art
- Part II Medieval performance and the book
- Part III Performability and medieval narrative genres
- Part IV Perspectives from contemporary performers
- Afterword
- Works cited
- Index
Summary
It is the feast of Pentecost at King Arthur's castle at Carduel in Wales. In the great hall, knights, ladies, and maidens tell stories and talk of love, while Arthur has lingered and fallen to sleep in the adjoining bedchamber. Guinevere, however, has arisen and returns to listen to Calogrenant tell how he was shamed by the Knight of the Fountain, Esclados le Roux. Calogrenant invites his hearers to listen well: “Cuer et oroeilles me rendés … Give me your hearts and ears, for words are lost unless they are heard in the heart.” Calogrenant then begins his tale, in true storyteller fashion: “Il avint, pres a de. vi. anz … It happened some six years ago that I wandered alone, fully armed to seek adventure as a knight should … After I turned right through a thick forest, I rode out into Brocéliande.” While Calogrenant's story moves his hearers to talk of action, it inspires Yvain to set off alone with his squire to seek out the fountain and avenge his cousin, Calogrenant.
This scene, which opens Chrétien de Troyes's romance Le chevalier au lion (Yvain), is a striking medieval depiction of a narrative in performance. It tells us much about the content and purpose of this moment of storytelling. It displays a courtly entertainment performed here by one member of an elegant group of knights and ladies; the story is intended to touch the valiant heart of its hearers. Yet the artist who illustrated the key episodes of Le chevalier au lion so richly in Paris, BnF MS Fr. 1433 passes over Calogrenant's performance before the assembly of knights and ladies, beginning rather with his combat with Esclados. These miniatures show not the telling, but the tale.
In like manner, modern critics have often yielded to the illusion of direct access to medieval narrative. They have tended to look right through evidence of medieval and contemporary performances of narrative to focus on the texts of the tales themselves as they were transmitted in writing. It is true that scholars have long recognized the significance of certain types of narrative performance. Medieval epics in Britain, Scandinavia, France, and elsewhere, are known to have been sung from memory by professional performers who accompanied themselves on a stringed instrument such as a harp or a vielle.
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- Information
- Performing Medieval Narrative , pp. 1 - 12Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2005