Yvain, the Knight of the Lion

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Yvain rescues the lion

Yvain, the Knight of the Lion (French: Yvain, le Chevalier au Lion) is a romance by Chrétien de Troyes. It was probably written in the 1170s simultaneously with Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, and includes several references to the action in that poem. The main character, Yvain, is derived from the historical Owain mab Urien.

In the poem, Yvain seeks to avenge his cousin Calogrenant who had been defeated by an otherworldly knight beside a magical storm-making fountain in the forest of Broceliande. Yvain defeats this knight, Esclados and falls in love with his widow Laudine. With the aid of Laudine's servant Lunete, Yvain wins his lady and marries her, but Gawain convinces him to embark on chivalric adventure. His wife assents but demands he return after a set period of time of one year, but he becomes so enthralled in his knightly exploits that he forgets his lady, and she bars him from returning. Yvain goes mad with grief, but eventually decides to win back his love. A lion he rescues from a serpent proves to be a loyal companion and a symbol of knightly virtue, and helps him complete his altruistic ventures. In the end, Laudine allows him and his lion to return to her fortress.

Chrétien's source for the poem is unknown, but the story bears a number of similarities to the hagiographical Life of Saint Mungo (also known as Saint Kentigern), which claims Owain mab Urien as the father of the saint by the daughter of Lot of Lothian. The similarities suggest the works had a common Latin or Celtic source.

Yvain had a huge impact on the literary world; German poet Hartmann von Aue used it as the basis for his masterpiece Iwein, and the author of Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain, one of the Welsh Romances included in the Mabinogion, recast the work back into its Welsh setting. The poem exists in a several versions in different languages, including the Middle English Ywain and Gawain.

[edit] References

Chrétien de Troyes; Owen, D. D. R. (translator) (1988). Arthurian Romances. New York: Everyman's Library. ISBN 0-460-87389-X.
Chrétien de Troyes; Raffel, Burton (translator) (1987). Yvain, the Knight of the Lion. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-03837-2.
Lacy, Norris J. (1991). "Chrétien de Troyes". In Norris J. Lacy, The New Arthurian Encyclopedia, pp. 88–91. New York: Garland. ISBN 0-8240-4377-4.