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The likes of Dinadan: The rôle of the misfit in Arthurian literature

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Notes

  1. Erich Köhler,Ideal und Wirklichkeit in der höfischen Epik (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1956), p. 24.

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  2. Jürgen Haupt,Der Truchsess Keie im Artusroman (Berlin: Schmidt, 1971), p. 84.

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  3. D. H. Green,Irony in the Medieval Romance (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1979), p. 204.

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  4. Haupt.op. cit., p. 132. On the dialectical nature of romance, see Tony Hunt, “Aristotle, Dialectic, and Courtly Literature,”Viator, X (1979), 95–129.

  5. Ernst Brugger's celebrated series of articles on “Der schöne Feigling in der arthurischen Literatur, ”ZrPh, 61 (1941), 1–44; 63 (1943), 123–73, 275–328; 65 (1949), 121–92, 298–433; 67 (1951), 289–98, are of little help in this regard.

  6. Jean Frappier, “Le Personnage de Galehaut dans leLancelot en prose,”RPh, XVII (1964), 535–54; rpt. in idem,Amour courtois et Table Ronde (Geneva: Droz, 1973), 181–208.

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  7. I quote the Balain story from the “unlaced” version edited by M. Dominica Legge,Le Roman de Balain (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 1942).

  8. Eugène Vinaver, introduction to Legge, op. cit., p. xxc.

  9. References to this part of theLancelot are to vol. I of the edition of Alexandre Micha (Geneva: Droz, 1978), and to section and paragraph.

  10. “Quant Galehout vit fondre son chastel, il ne fet pas a demander s'il fu dolens, ains s'en esbahi tant que par un poi qu'il ne chaï del cheval a terre. Et quant il pot parler, si dist en sospirant: ‘Ha, Diex, tant felenessement me commence a meschaoir!’” (II, 18)

  11. See also XXVIII,25 and XXX,9 ff.

  12. Frappier, art. cit., p. 190.

  13. pp. 326 ff. of Elspeth Kennedy's edition,Lancelot do Lac (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1980).

  14. Jean-Charles Payen, “LeTristan en prose, manuel de l'amitié: le cas Dinadan, ” in E. Ruhe and R. Schwaderer, (eds.),Der altfranzösische Prosaroman (Munich: Fink, 1979), 104–21, p. 105.

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  15. Payen, art. cit., p. 111.

  16. Emmanuèle Baumgartner,Le Tristan en prose (Geneva: Droz, 1975), p. 182. Also Eugène Vinaver, “Un Chevalier errant à la recherche du sens du monde,”Mélanges Maurice Delbouille (Gembloux: Duculot, 1964), II, 677–86, p. 678.

  17. Alfred Adler, “Dinadan, inquiétant ou rassurant?”Mélanges Rita Lejeune (Gembloux: Duculot, 1969), II, 935–43, and E. Löseth,Le Roman en prose de Tristan (Paris: Champion, 1891; rpt. New York, 1970), § 108.

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  18. See Payen, art. cit., pp. 117–18, and Vinaver, art. cit., p. 685.

  19. cf. also Frappier, art. cit., p. 205.

  20. InDer altfranzösische Prosaroman (see n. 14), p. 122.

  21. The murderers are Agravain and Mordred.

  22. See esp. Micha, VI,29 and VII,16 ff.; Löseth, § 363, 406–7.

  23. See Micha, XV,4.

  24. Vinaver, art. cit., p. 680.

  25. Philippe Ménard,Le Rire et le sourire dans le roman courtois en France au Moyen Age (Geneva: Droz, 1969), pp. 459–61.

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  26. Baumgartner,op. cit., p. 185.

  27. Keith Busby,Gauvain in Old French Literature (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1980), p. 294.

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  28. See also Payen, art. cit., p. 115.

  29. Haupt,op. cit., p. 129.

  30. Vinaver, art. cit., p. 678. The terms V.I, V.II, etc. are Baumgartner's.

  31. Vinaver, art. cit., p. 682.

  32. The presence of these (and other) interpolations is difficult to explain, and needs further investigation, but theTristan en prose has a pronounced fondness for extended tournaments, and it may be that the interpolator felt that he was remaining true to the spiriit of the earlier versions. Philip Bennett has shown that there the tournaments occur at crucial points in the development of the narrative. Here, however, the function of the tournament is obscure and, as I have suggested, may be little more thandivertissement. See Philip Bennett. “The Tournaments in theProse Tristan,”RF, 87 (1975), 335–41.

  33. Baumgartner,op. cit., p. 72.

  34. The significance of these medieval references to vegetarianism is unclear to me: a diet of herbs, bread and beans is evidently regarded as undesirable by Dinadan, being animal fodder. “Ramentevoir feves” means “ badiner, plaisanter,” and a sense of “to gossip” might fit the context here.

  35. Vinaver, art. cit., p. 681; cf. also Adler, art. cit., p. 939.

  36. Löseth,op. cit., p. 198, seems to have misread the sense of Dinadan's words to Galehaut: he does not compare him to a woodcutter, but to the ass which carries the wood on its back. See also the passage from fol. 387a quoted above.

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  1. Instituut ALW, Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht, Ramstraat 31, 3581 HD, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Keith Busby

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Busby, K. The likes of Dinadan: The rôle of the misfit in Arthurian literature. Neophilologus 67, 161–174 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02334225

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