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The twelfth-century French poet Chrétien de Troyes is a major figure in European literature. His courtly romances fathered the Arthurian tradition and influenced countless other poets in England as well as on the continent. Yet because of the difficulty of capturing his swift-moving style in translation, English-speaking audiences are largely unfamiliar with the pleasures of reading his poems.Now, for the first time, an experienced translator of medieval verse who is himself a poet provides a translation of Chrétien’s major poem, Yvain, in verse that fully and satisfyingly captures the movement, the sense, and the spirit of the Old French original. Yvain is a courtly romance with a moral tenor; it is ironic and sometimes bawdy; the poetry is crisp and vivid. In addition, the psychological and the socio-historical perceptions of the poem are of profound literary and historical importance, for it evokes the emotions and the values of a flourishing, vibrant medieval past. 

In this outstanding new translation of Lancelot, Burton Raffel brings to English language readers the fourth of Chrtiens five surviving romantic Arthurian poems. This poem was the first to introduce Lancelot as an important figure in the King Arthur legend.

One of the most influential storytellers in Western literature, French poet Chrtien de Troyes helped to shape the ever-fascinating legend of King Arthur and the Round Table. Of Chrtien's five surviving romantic Arthurian poems, the last and longest is Perceval, an unfinished work that introduces the story of the Graila legend quickly adopted by other medieval writers and taken up by a continuing succession of authors. In Chrtien's romance, Perceval progresses from a naive boyhood in rural seclusion to a position of high respect as a knight at Arthur's court. With the help of two teachershis mother and Gornemant of GoortPerceval is ultimately able to reject the worldly adventures chosen by other knights and seek important moral and spiritual answers.Acclaimed for his sensitive and faithful translations of the poems of Chrtien, Burton Raffel completes the Arthurian series with this rendition of Perceval. Raffel conveys to the modern English language reader all the delights of Chrtiens inventive storytelling, perceptive characterizations and vividly evoked emotions.