Chretien de Troyes 
Four Arthurian Romances 
‘Yvain’

In the poem, Yvain seeks to avenge his cousin Calogrenant who had been defeated by an otherworldly knight Esclados beside a magical storm-making stone in the forest of Brocéliande. Yvain defeats Esclados and falls in love with his widow Laudine. Chrétien’s works include five major poems in rhyming eight-syllable couplets. Four of these are complete; ‘Erec and Enide’ (c. 1170); ‘Cligès’ (c. 1176), and ‘Yvain, the Knight of the Lion’ and ‘Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart’, both written simultaneously between 1177 and 1181. Chrétien’s final romance was ‘Perceval, the Story of the Grail’, written between 1181 and 1190, but left unfinished, though some scholars have disputed this. This volume includes a comprehensive set of linked footnotes to deepen the reading experience.