What do you think?
Rate this book
The Romance of Tristan
The Prose 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 fell in love after drinking the love potion meant for Iseut and her husband Mark. This readable, idiomatic translation emphasizes those parts which link the prose romance with the poetic Tristan legend. The introduction examines the Prose Tristan in the context of the many other versions of the legend, and the explanatory notes clarify medieval practices, institutions, names, and places, and detail as well as linguistic ambiguities.
380 pages, Paperback
First published June 23, 1994
2 people are currently reading
105 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 12, 2008
The movie, "Tristan and Isolde" is loosely based off of this legend. Great book, but the movie is loosely based, so don't think that you can substitute the movie for the book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 31, 2013
I'm afraid all the juicy bits concerning Tristan's interactions with the Knights of the Round Table have been redacted or abridged.
February 19, 2018
The adaptation of the Tristan and Iseult story into a long prose romance, The Romance of Tristan is the first to weave the subject entirely into the arc of the Arthurian legend. One of the most popular, european myths widely spread across the world, it tells the story of the star-crossed lovers, Tristan and Iseult. The author who wrote it down meshes both Celtic paganism and Christian traditions with the customs of the Middle Ages.
The story establishes a rich background by linking the fates of the main characters with Joseph of Arimathea, the lines his descendants established as well as with the quest for the Holy Grail. Tristan's guardian, Governal, after the tragic death of his parents through which his name translates into sadness, takes him to France, where he is raised in the court of King Pharamond. When he is older, he travels to the court of his uncle Mark, King of Cornwall, and defends his country against the Irish warrior Morholt who demands a heavy sacrifice each year. Wounded in the fight, he travels back to Ireland where Iseult the healer and Morholt's niece nurses him back to health. When the Irish discover he has slain their warrior, Tristan flees.
Tristan later returns, in disguise, to seek Iseult as a bride for his uncle. When they accidentally consume the love potion prepared for Iseult and Mark, they engage in an ill-fated affair that ends with Tristan being banished to the court of Hoel of Brittany. He eventually consents to marry Hoel's daughter, also named Iseult of the white hands.
From this point, various episodes of adventures are tied into the narrative. Tristan goes on more adventures where he fights against Knights, joins Arthur's court and the Round Table, engages in bloody battles with the Saracen knight, Palamides, who vies for Iseult's love, forms a close friendship with Lancelot against whom he unknowingly fights several times and goes on a quest for the Holy Grail at Arthur's request while constantly clashes with king Mark and alternately returns to and flees from Cornwall.
A world where words and promises are regarded sacred, where friendships are strong and everlasting and where courtly love takes the spotlight, The Romance of Tristan provides the reader with a fascinating narrative full of intrigue, adventure, honour and melancholy where emotions and ideals reign supreme.
It's a story built on the dialectics between love-passion and death. Having read Denis de Rougemont's Love in the Western World, I was able to view the story under a different light and understand the connotations of the mystical language applied. Rougemont makes a pretty valid point in his scholarly work when he analyzes the myth and concludes that what drives the lovers is not the love they nurture for each other, but a narcissistic love they nurture for themselves.
Passion as suffering. Tristan and Iseult are in love with the idea of love and ultimately with death, towards which their behaviour and all their actions are leading them. Countless reunions and separations and obstacles they themselves place between them fire their passion. Until they consummate their desire in the embrace of death that vindicates and purifies everything.
The story establishes a rich background by linking the fates of the main characters with Joseph of Arimathea, the lines his descendants established as well as with the quest for the Holy Grail. Tristan's guardian, Governal, after the tragic death of his parents through which his name translates into sadness, takes him to France, where he is raised in the court of King Pharamond. When he is older, he travels to the court of his uncle Mark, King of Cornwall, and defends his country against the Irish warrior Morholt who demands a heavy sacrifice each year. Wounded in the fight, he travels back to Ireland where Iseult the healer and Morholt's niece nurses him back to health. When the Irish discover he has slain their warrior, Tristan flees.
Tristan later returns, in disguise, to seek Iseult as a bride for his uncle. When they accidentally consume the love potion prepared for Iseult and Mark, they engage in an ill-fated affair that ends with Tristan being banished to the court of Hoel of Brittany. He eventually consents to marry Hoel's daughter, also named Iseult of the white hands.
From this point, various episodes of adventures are tied into the narrative. Tristan goes on more adventures where he fights against Knights, joins Arthur's court and the Round Table, engages in bloody battles with the Saracen knight, Palamides, who vies for Iseult's love, forms a close friendship with Lancelot against whom he unknowingly fights several times and goes on a quest for the Holy Grail at Arthur's request while constantly clashes with king Mark and alternately returns to and flees from Cornwall.
A world where words and promises are regarded sacred, where friendships are strong and everlasting and where courtly love takes the spotlight, The Romance of Tristan provides the reader with a fascinating narrative full of intrigue, adventure, honour and melancholy where emotions and ideals reign supreme.
It's a story built on the dialectics between love-passion and death. Having read Denis de Rougemont's Love in the Western World, I was able to view the story under a different light and understand the connotations of the mystical language applied. Rougemont makes a pretty valid point in his scholarly work when he analyzes the myth and concludes that what drives the lovers is not the love they nurture for each other, but a narcissistic love they nurture for themselves.
Passion as suffering. Tristan and Iseult are in love with the idea of love and ultimately with death, towards which their behaviour and all their actions are leading them. Countless reunions and separations and obstacles they themselves place between them fire their passion. Until they consummate their desire in the embrace of death that vindicates and purifies everything.
Read
July 6, 2024V1: c.1230-1235
V2: after 1240
the first to tie the subject entirely into the arc of the Arthurian legend.
complex grouping of texts known as the Prose Tristan. Modern editions run twelve volumes for the extended version that includes Tristan's participation in the Quest for the Holy Grail. The shorter version without the grail quest consists of five books.
According to the prologue, the first part of the book (i.e. everything before the Grail material) is attributed to the otherwise unknown Luce de Gat, and was probably begun between 1230 and 1235. The work was expanded and reworked sometime after 1240 to create the more popular version known as V2. In the epilogue of V2, its author names himself as "Helie de Boron", asserting that he is the nephew of the first author of the Arthurian Grail cycles, poet Robert de Boron. Helie de Boron claims, like the so-called authors of the Roman de la Rose, to have picked up the story where Luce left off. Neither the biographies of the two authors, nor the claim that they had been translating the work from a Latin original are taken seriously by scholars.
V2: after 1240
the first to tie the subject entirely into the arc of the Arthurian legend.
complex grouping of texts known as the Prose Tristan. Modern editions run twelve volumes for the extended version that includes Tristan's participation in the Quest for the Holy Grail. The shorter version without the grail quest consists of five books.
According to the prologue, the first part of the book (i.e. everything before the Grail material) is attributed to the otherwise unknown Luce de Gat, and was probably begun between 1230 and 1235. The work was expanded and reworked sometime after 1240 to create the more popular version known as V2. In the epilogue of V2, its author names himself as "Helie de Boron", asserting that he is the nephew of the first author of the Arthurian Grail cycles, poet Robert de Boron. Helie de Boron claims, like the so-called authors of the Roman de la Rose, to have picked up the story where Luce left off. Neither the biographies of the two authors, nor the claim that they had been translating the work from a Latin original are taken seriously by scholars.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews