The history of Tristan and Iseut (or Iseult, Yseut, Yseult) crossed the centuries to integrate the Littérature. Of Celtic origin , they are the Norman poets who made of them the first draftings which are preserved to us.

Origin of the myth

Texts

Exit of the oral tradition, the very popular history of Tristan and Iseut makes its entry in the literature written at the 12th century. Several different texts were born, whose famous versions of Béroul and Thomas of England, some were unfortunately lost like that of Chrétien of Troyes, none of those which reached us are not integral.
  • the Roman of Tristan is the work of Norman the Béroul. Criticisms differ on the date from its drafting. The commonly allowed version is that the first part (to the alarm clock in Morrois) date of 1170, and that the second part was written more tardily. Incomplete, the preserved manuscript is a copy of the end of the 13th century. It what is called constitutes generally the “common version” of the legend of Tristan.
  • the Tristan of Thomas of England date of 1175. It was baptized “courteous version”, because the depth of the development of the psychology of the characters. However, the matter even of the myth of Tristan makes that this version is registered in opposition with many codes of the courteous tradition.
  • Two manuscripts tell an episode where Tristan was disguised into insane to re-examine Iseut; they are called both Folie Tristan . The Folie Tristan of Oxford is generally attached to the novel of Thomas and the Folie Tristan of Bern to the version known as common of Béroul.
  • Marie de France treats also this history in the Lai of Chèvrefeuille . It was undoubtedly composed between 1160 and 1189.
  • Lanzelet of Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, written about the year 1200, where Tristan is a knight of the court of Arthur.
  • In the Beautiful Unknown of Renaud de Beaujeu, also writes towards 1200, Tristan organizes, with the Russet-red one of Montescler, the tournament of Valedon, where many knights illustrate themselves, of which Tristan itself, Gauvain and especially Guinglain, the son of Gauvain.
  • the German poet Gottfried von Strassburg composed a Tristan und Isolde towards 1210, undoubtedly inspired of the version of Thomas of England.
  • the saga of Tristan and Iseut , written in 1226 by Brother Robert for the king Hakon IV of Norway, is a complete account beginning again of many elements of the Tristan of Thomas of England and of the Roman of Tristan of Béroul, to which some traces of Scandinavian mythology were added.
  • the Novel of Jaufré (Anonymous, 13th century), makes evolve/move the character of Tristan to make of it a knight of the roundtable, at the court of the King Arthur.
  • cyclic Version Post-Vulgate, Tristan in prose (Luce del Gat and Hélie de Boron, two knight-writers, 13th century) where Tristan takes part in the Search of the Graal.
  • English language version of Thomas Malory, The Book off Sir Tristram de Lyones (aka the Dead D' Arthur , 15th century)

A Celtic origin

The origin of the history is dubious; Tristan would be at the base a hero Picte of Scotland, the word Drust ( Drostan ), in this language being able to mean “impetuous”, but the legend would be for a good part due to the contributions of various people Celtes (of which Welsh, the Cornouaillais, the Armorican Bretons) of the cultural surface Brittonique. Some critical like Bedier, Golther or Schoeperle locate the initial text of the legend in first half of the 12th century, others as Carney make it go back to the 8th century. However, the existence even of a first single and complete account at the base of those which were preserved to us is prone to guarantee. The legend probably constituted in only once, but did not develop gradually in an oral and transmitted way generations in generations, then with the wire of the rewritings, reinterpretations, and enrichments or deformations cultural or geographical. While being based in particular on the most antiquated elements of the legend, one can however suppose that the bards Welsh, at the origin of the first writings known on Tristan (the triads ), took as a starting point themselves a legend of the Celtic literature, which has as protagonists in love Diarmaid and Grainne. Many reasons present in this legend are found in the accounts of Tristan. One also could give like another source of the myth the legend of Deirdre and Noise.

Influence ancient novels

Even if the reasons for Tristan are directly related to those of Celtic myths, it is possible to establish relations between the ancient novels and the novels of Tristan , in particular that of Thomas. Indeed, the most original characteristics of this last compared to the common version, like the multiplication of the monologs and the comments to the detriment of the pure account, seem borrowed from the ancient novel. They are the base of a reflection on the love within the novel which approaches the concerns of certain ancient novels. Especially, and here in a more general way, the novels of Tristan, even if none is complete, recall the course of the hero of its birth until his death. They are characterized by what Baumgartner calls in its study Tristan and Iseut: legend with the accounts in worms a “biographical structure” which copies “the time of the account on the model of human time”. This structure is inherited in right-hand side line of the ancient novels.

Novels of Tristan and the courteous tradition

The presence of the term of fin' amor in the manuscript of Béroul as that of a true speech on the love at Thomas can induce in error and bring to too quickly bring closer the novels to Tristan like the Courtly romance . The major difference holds so that in the courteous tradition, the desire is unilateral (of the man towards the woman object of desire) and absolutely is controlled and channeled with an aim of producing the speech in love which constitutes the matter even work. However what founds the novels of Tristan and beyond the legend even of Tristan and Iseut, it is the impossibility which have the two lovers to control their desire. When the desire in the courteous tradition is fertile because it is never carried out and makes it possible to the poet to sing his love, the desire in the novels of Tristan, because of the Philter, is always already carried out, and constitutes a source of anguish more than one subject of exaltation. For the worship of the desire of the courteous tradition the novels of Tristan substitute the image of a destroying desire, which constitutes even a against-model whose one must divert the young generations. The account of this disastrous passion must at Thomas warn the new lovers.

Encuntre tuiz machines of amur! (Against all the traps of the love). However, a purely negative interpretation of the desire in the novels of Tristan would be skewed; one can also see in the death of the lovers the supreme realization of a love which exceeded necessarily the terminals of the world of the men. It remains that the desire in the novels of Tristan is, contrary to its position in the courtly romances, at the same time reciprocal and impossible to control.

The legend

Foot-note : this summary is not that a short synthesis so much the legend experiences different versions and developments, sometimes contradictory.

  • Rivalen, king de Loonois married Bleunwenn (name Breton meaning “ White-Fleur ”), the sister of Marc' H the king of Cornwall in Armorique. Rivalen from goes away in war where it finds death. Bleunwenn, before dying of sorrow gives rise to a son, Tristan.

  • the child is collected and raised by his/her uncle, the king Marc' H, in Armorican Brittany. This last was to discharge payment of a tribute near the king of Ireland. A few years later, Tristan decides to finish some with this habit and when it arrives in the island, it must fight the giant Morholt, the brother-in-law of the king. Tristan receives a blow of poisoned sword, but it mortally wounds the giant who, in a last breath, indicates to him that Iseut, the girl of the king, has the capacity to neutralize the poison. The young girl cures Tristan of her evils without it knowing that it killed his uncle Morholt. Once restored, it takes again the sea and turns over close to his uncle.

  • Marc' H wishes that its nephew succeed to him the head of Cornwall, but of the lords are opposed to it, preferring a direct succession. The king issues that he will marry that to which belongs the golden hair, deposited the morning even by a bird. Tristan remembers Iseut and suggests an embassy near the king of Ireland. Hardly unloaded, terrible a dragon emerges which it must fight and occire not without to have been wounded. For the second time, it is looked after by the girl of the king. Iseut sees that the sword of the knight carries a mark which corresponds to a piece of iron, found in cranium of Morholt; she understands that it is Tristan which killed his/her uncle, but gives up any idea of revenge. He discharges his mission and the father accepts that his/her daughter marries the king of Cornwall, which is a manner of erasing the disagreements between the two kingdoms. Iseut tests some resentment of little interest which Tristan expresses to him, but embarks for the Brittany.

  • the queen of Ireland gives a magic philter to Brangien, the maidservant of Iseut which is voyage. It is intended to the new grooms the evening of their wedding night. The power of the philter is such as after absorption, the lovers are eternally enthusiast and happy, and that a separation would be unbearable for them, even fatal. During navigation between the island and the continent, believing to be refreshed with water, Tristan magic beverage and in offer with Iseut drinks. The effect is instantaneous. In spite of this new indéfectible love, the young girl marries the king Marc' H, but the evening of the weddings, it is the Brangien maidservant who takes seat in the bed of the king.

  • the lovers escape and decide to live in the forest, fleeing any heart which lives. At the end of three years, the magic of the philter ends up growing blurred. After a long search time, the king surprises them deadened in the cave which shelters them, the sword of Tristan planted in the ground between them two. The king thinks that it is about a sign of chastity and respects the purity of their feelings. He replaces the sword by his, puts his ring at the finger of Iseut and from goes away. With the alarm clock, they understand that the king saved them. It is separation, Iseut turns over close to the king Marc' h.

  • Tristan from goes away in the island of Brittany where it ends up marrying Iseut with the white hands, whose beauty points out that of Iseut the blonde to him. Its principal occupation is the war and during a forwarding, it is seriously wounded. Once more, only Iseut the Blonde can save it. It makes it claim by being appropriate that the boat returns with a white sail if she agrees to help it. Iseut arrives then in a vessel at the white veil, but the wife of Tristan, of anger and jealousy, says to him that the sail is black. Believing itself given up by that which he likes, he lets himself die (or commits suicide out of a blow of sword). Iseut the blonde, arrival close to the body of Tristan, dies in its turn of sorrow. The king Marc' H takes the sea and brings back the bodies of the lovers and the fact of burying in Cornwall, one close to the other.

Complements

Contemporary writings

Yann Brekilien, in its novel Iseult and Tristan (to note the inversion of the first names), replaces the history in its mythological context in order to show the myth in its primitive direction. It gives again in Iseut the place which the Celtic woman in the company had, i.e. equalizes it of the man (see the queen Medb who déchenche the Razzia of the cows of Cooley , to equalize in inheritance its husband, the king Ailill). It is the initiator of the escape with her lover, affirming his independence, which was inconceivable for the trouveres Norman.

French accounts

Tristan and music

  • Starting from this legend, Richard Wagner composed an opera entitled Tristan und Isolde (creation in 1865).
  • Of other type-setters embroidered around this myth, of which Karol Szymanowski in one of the parts of its Masques , Tantris the buffoon , where Tantris, inversion of Tristan, are disguised as a buffoon in order to try to approach Iseut; this piece is inspired by the play of Ernst Hardt.
  • Frank Martin also composed an opera entitled the Wine bleached on grass , whose booklet is more directly inspired by the medieval legend than the booklet of Wagner.

Catalog of films

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