Cross-Cultural Tristan

Tracing back to the uncertain origins of the Tristan legend, this chapter deals first with the earliest written forms of the story of Tristan and Isolde. It then describes the spread of the story throughout Europe, its gradual Arthurianisation, and discusses the place it may have occupied in courtly literature. The Prose Tristan concludes the rivalry between Tristan and Lancelot initiated by Chrétien de Troyes. At the same time, it completes Tristan’s integration into the canon of the Arthurian cycle. In later romances, Tristan is then regarded as equal to Lancelot on the battlefield, and the greatest of the knight-poets.