Cliges: A Romance

From the opening

IT is six hundred and fifty years since Chretien de Troyes wrote his Cliges. And yet he is wonderfully near us, whereas he is separated by a great gulf from the rude trouveres of the Chansons de Gestes and from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was still dragging out its weary length in his early days. Chretien is as refined, as civilised, as composite as we are ourselves; his ladies are as full of whims, impulses, sudden reserves, self-debate as M. Paul Bourget's heroines; while the problems of conscience and of emotion which confront them are as complex as those presented on the modern stage. Indeed, there is no break between the Breton romance and the psychological-analytical novel of our own day.

Whence comes this amazing modernity and complexity? From many sources:--Provencal love-lore, Oriental subtlety, and Celtic mysticism--all blended by that marvellous dexterity, style, malice, and measure which are so utterly French that English has no adequate words for them. We said "Celtic mysticism," but there is something else about Chretien which is also Celtic, though very far from being "mystic". We talk a great deal nowadays about Celtic melancholy, Celtic dreaminess, Celtic "other-worldliness"; and we forget the qualities that made Caesar's Gauls, St. Paul's Galatians, so different from the grave and steadfast Romans--that loud Gaulois that has made the Parisian the typical Frenchman. A different being, this modern Athenian, from the mystic Irish peasant we see in the poetic modern Irish drama!--and yet both are Celts.

Not much "other-worldliness" about Chretien. He is as positive as any man can be. His is not of the world of Saint Louis, of the Crusaders, of the Cathedral-builders. In Cliges there is no religious atmosphere at all. We hear scarcely anything of Mass, of bishops, of convents. When he mentions Tierce or Prime, it is merely to tell us the hour at which something happened--and this something is never a religious service. There is nothing behind the glamour of arms and love, except for the cas de conscience presented by the lovers.

A short sample. Read the whole book

More to read

• "Captains Courageous": A Story of the Grand BanksRudyard KiplingLiterature & Fiction191 pages
• "Captains Courageous": A Story of the Grand BanksRudyard KiplingLiterature & Fiction191 pages
• "I Say No"Wilkie CollinsLiterature & Fiction428 pages
• "Miss Lou"Edward Payson RoeLiterature & Fiction409 pages
• "Speaking of Operations--"Irvin S. CobbLiterature & Fiction37 pages