Book Description

The Romance of Tristan tells one of the most moving and influential love stories of world literature: the doomed, uncontrollable, and enthralling passion of Tristan and Iseut, who fall in love after drinking the love potion meant for Iseut and her husband Mark. The prose version, which concentrates particularly on Tristan's life and character, was one of the most widely acclaimed works in medieval Europe, and for a long time the legend of Tristan was known primarily through it, rather than through the poetic versions. The book had considerable influence on European culture; Malory, for example, based Books VIII to XII of his Morte d'Arthur on it. This is the first translation from the Old French of the whole of this important romance. It emphasizes those parts which link the prose romance with the Tristan legend; the sections not concerned with the traditional story are included in synoptic form. The introduction examines the Prose Tristan in the context of the many other versions of the legend and explanatory notes clarify medieval practice, institutions, names, and places, as well as linguistic ambiguities.