Reviews for Lancelot: The Knight of the Cart

The average rating for Lancelot: The Knight of the Cart based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-05-10 00:00:00 Lorna Johnson Chrétien de Troyes' poem, Lancelot, or, The Knight of the Cart, tells the story of Queen Guinevere's abduction by Meleagant, a prince of the kingdom of Gorre, and his liberation of all the prisoners Meleagant has held there. It is also the first extant poem to give an account of Lancelot's adulterous love for Guinevere. In many ways, it's an odd poem. The first half seems almost Messianic, with Lancelot (unnamed by Chrétien at the time) destined to rescue the prisoners in the land of Gorre from their tyrannical captor, Meleagant; then it transforms into a tale of adulterous love. Lancelot's mission starts to become messianic with his lifting of the tomb lid (1900-09; 230-31). His actions release prisoners, and he's the only person who can do it. One of these prisoners later tells him, "when one person can escape this imprisonment without trickery, all the others, I assure you, will be able to leave unchallenged" (2110-15; 233). This comment sets the whole adventure in a Harrowing of Hell mode, where Lancelot stands in for Christ, redeeming those souls ensnared by Satan through no fault of their own. They simply had the misfortune to be born BC rather than AD. Later, the joy of the released prisoners, and their ability to slay their captors even though it was principally through the efforts of "un seul chevalier" (2431; 237) reflects the belief that many are redeemed through the sacrifice of a single individual, i.e., Christ. In some ways, this is a very poor poem, especially when compared with Yvain, Or, the Knight With the Lion. Arthur is an object almost of derision, Lancelot's passion makes him subject to silly trances and has almost unmanned him, and Guinevere is so fickle one wonders why on earth Lancelot is attracted to her. It is a poem Chrétien does not seem happy with. Erec and Enide was about a knight reconciling his marriage with his life of chivalry, Yvain about a knight reconciling his life of chivalry with his marriage. Lancelot is about illicit love, and possibly the disharmonious theme did not appeal to Chrétien, since it could not be expressive of perfect love. This perhaps (according to Gaston Paris and those who followed him) is why Chrétien left the poem to Godefroi de Leigny to complete. It has also been suggested that the poem is an allegory of Chrétien's relationship with Marie de Champagne, fictionalizing the trials a great man suffers on account of a woman's whim. Arthur is a typical cuckold, weak, ineffectual, and pathetic'perhaps even comic. Guinevere must become personally unpalatable, submitting her lover to any number of unreasonable trials, and he must put up not only with the trials, but with her whims as well. There is no hint of any idealistic conflict within Lancelot, as there is in later versions of the story. He feels no guilt at sleeping with his lord's wife, simply pleasure at being able to do so, nor is there any investigation into what has initially attracted Lancelot and Guinevere to one another. Possibly it is this also which so disgusted Chrétien that he could not finish it. However, the poem was tremendously influential'prior to it, Lancelot had had a very meagre biography, but afterwards, he became the major knight of the Round Table. Chrétien's poem gave the Arthurian legend form. But none of the story is specific to Lancelot. Prior to Chrétien's romance, he had no biography of his own, and all his adventures here have also been credited to other Round Table knights. Chrétien is one of the first writers to develop the idea of allegory; it's to be seen in the passage in which Love debates with Reason as to whether Lancelot should mount the cart (360-77; 211-12), in the debate between Generosity and Compassion (2836-65) when Lancelot is trying to decide whether to kill the knight who is at his mercy, and when Joy and Reason struggle to decide how the queen will greet the recently-released Lancelot (6820-53; 290-91). Each of these debates sets up a particular duality. The first pits an emotion against an intellectual capacity; the debate is essentially one between sense and sensibility. Emotion wins here, but only after a struggle. The second pits a chivalric virtue, generosity or largesse (OFr. largece), against a religious virtue, compassion or pity. Lancelot's solution is to fight again, a brilliant reconciliation between the two apparently incompatible virtues. This to some extent characterizes Chrétien's work: it repeatedly submits its hero to a series of tests in which two incompatible virtues vie. Lancelot becomes, to a certain extent, a model for behaviour. Eventually, the queen allows herself to be ruled by Reason, not Joy, so she is capable of suppressing her own desires. Ruth Harwood Cline's translation is masterful, taking Chrétien's octosyllabic couplets in French and transforming them into octosyllabic couplets in English. And where I've checked it against the French, it's remarkably accurate. Of all the translations of Chrétien, this is the most fun to read. And the poem itself is of tremendous importance to the history of Arthurian literature. It just doesn't hang together very well (which is why I don't give it a perfect rating)

Review # 2 was written on 2015-11-02 00:00:00 Vonney Lancaster lancelot is a damsel in distress lancelot in the tower: oh woe, my life sucks, i'm stuck here forever the maiden: yo, lancelot! lancelot: i will never be free. nobody knows i'm here. alas. the maiden: seriously dude i'm right here lancelot: i wish i was dead the maiden: LANCELOT lancelot: i'm dreaming the maiden: no you're not. i'm literally right here lancelot: who are you? the maiden: your knight in shining armour. now stop messing about and throw down that rope you've got, and i'll send up on it this pickaxe that i handily have with me because i am an excellent rescuer, and then i'll make it so you don't die on the journey even if i have to walk so that you can ride my mule, and basically i am a thousand times more competent than you lancelot: wow lancelot: this is definitely not a dream, right? the maiden: definitely not. lancelot: okay. but like. i love you a lot for rescuing me and i think you're awesome, but i'm still totally in love with guinevere. you know that don't you? the maiden: *rolls eyes* just let me rescue you already