Introduction:

Like Erec and Enide, Cligés about the testing of the hero and of the heroine (or rather, in this bi-partite plot, of heroes and heroines) by a series of adventures.

I. Setting:

Polarity between East and West, showing the medieval fascination with Byzantium:

In part I, between Constantinople and Arthur’s British court; in the longer part II, between Germany (and Arthur’s court briefly) and Constantinople

1. Awareness of Byzantine opulence of Constantinople derives from

a. world of late antiquity

b. Carolingan Empire 8th-9th c,

c. The Crusades. Although the fall of Constantinople to the Europeans (1198) postdates Chrétien’s romance, the political, cultural, and religious interest in Byzantium was very strong in his day.

2. The exotic, rich, luxurious city, the continuation of the Roman empire with its luxury contrasts with the European capitals.

II. Genre: Combining Greek romance with chanson d’aventure.

1. Elements of Greek Novel:

a. Separation of two lovers, young lovers against cruel guardians and hostile world

b. hair-breath escapes from a series of appalling perils and adversities, such as storms at sea, shipwreck

c. a final reunion and happy ending

2. French Romance

a. Arthurian matrix.

b. Armes et amor.

c. Education of the hero and heroine by testing.

III. Themes:

Chrétien’s introduction signifies authorial interests:

1. As translator of Ovid’s works in the Aetas Ovidiana:

Amores, Ars Amatoria, Remedia Amoris--the rhetoric of love (debate, letters, ploys, methods)

2. Metamorphoses-- important theme in romance: transformations

3. Translatio studii: Greece to Rome, then finally (and permanently) to France.

IV. Plot Structure: Unequal bipartite.

Part I: lines 1-2383: Alexander and Soredamors

Note the débats, physiology of sight, the malady of love sickness, physical catalogue.

Plot: armes: Alexander aids Arthur against traitorous Angrés (lines c. 550 and 1062)

amor: Alexander wins Soredamors through go-between Queen Guenevere

Part II: lines 2384-6664: Cligès and Fenice

Note mixture of political reality and fantasy; demandes d’amour (3865 ff.); use of hagographic motifs (5958ff.)

Plot: Cligés in rivalry with uncle, emperor Alis, and with Duke of Saxony for Fenice. After forced marriage to emperor, Fenice with help of Thessala tricks Alis. but she refuses to flee with Cligés as "another Isolde." After proving himself against Arthur’s knights in Britain, Cligés returns to claim Fenice, who feigns death. Though doctors rip her apart, she endures the martyr’s torture and is rescued to a seculded tower and bower constructed by the artificer John. Discovered in their hortus conclusus, they escape. Luckily, the emperor dies of grief, and Cligés and Fenice take the throne.