For the glaring inconsistencies between the reality and the
ideal, one may turn to the chronicles of the period. Yet, even
history tells of many an ugly sin rebuked and of many a gallant
deed performed because of the courteous ideals of chivalry. The
debt of our own social code to this literature of courtesy and
frequent self-sacrifice is perfectly manifest.
What Chretien's immediate and specific source was for his
romances is of deep interest to the student. Unfortunately, he
has left us in doubt. He speaks in the vaguest way of the
materials he used. There is no evidence that he had any Celtic
written source. We are thus thrown back upon Latin or French
literary originals which are lost, or upon current continental
lore going back to a Celtic source. This very difficult problem
is as yet unsolved in the case of Chretien, as it is in the case
of the Anglo-Norman Beroul, who wrote of Tristan about 1150. The
material evidently was at hand and Chretien appropriated it,
without much understanding of its primitive spirit, but
appreciating it as a setting for the ideal society dreamed of but
not realised in his own day. Add to this literary perspicacity,
a good foundation in classic fable, a modicum of ecclesiastical
doctrine, a remarkable facility in phrase, figure, and rhyme and
we have the foundations for Chretien's art as we shall find it
upon closer examination.
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