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semble etre un h6ritage direct du Cubisme. Dans le nouveau roman comme dans 1' "6cole" cubiste, I'int6r&t glisse
arme."
motion ou immobiles, d'un seul coup d'oeil, ou successivement, sur plusieurs plans. En litt6rature comme dans les
arts plastiques, nous voyons maintenant un effort de nar-
nouveau roman.
5Ibid., p. 65.
Rice University
The original Lancelot tradition, probably best represented by Ulrich von Zatzikhoven in Lanzelet, knew the
hero as a conventional knight who married a number of
times and who, in general, was a rather jolly fellow.' It
'Concerning the fixed elements in the Lancelot tradition at about 1170 (that is, before the composition of the
Charrette), see pp. 11-12 of Professor Loomis's "Introduc-
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finds out that this is a vain effort. After she has been in
and Meliagant. In the Charrette, Lancelot establishes himself as the supreme knight of the Round Table, but this
fact does not become apparent until Gauvain, the man
who in Erec is listed in first place amongst all of Artus'
knights, fails to cross the perilous water-bridge while Lancelot succeeds in the comparable, though more dangerous,
love that dominates the Charrette. Throughout the romance it becomes quite clear that Lancelot's single purpose in life is to love and serve Guenievre. The queen is
the sole object of his thoughts and actions. By withholding the hero's name until the duel in front of her eyes, the
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Dolorous Garde-the aventure during which Lancelot discovers his name-makes it quite clear why and how he
arrived at such a conclusion. In those parts of the Prose
Lancelot that deal with Lancelot's childhood and adoles-
his foster mother, the Lady of the Lake ('"la dame del
lac").1o This dialogue assumes the form of a typical me-
upon the lad over and over again that it is the prime duty
of a Christian knight to protect Holy Church and to place
the thought of Christ before any other.11 The conjecture
one point in the "Prose Charrette," the hero himself explains why he is so intent upon maintaining the secret of
his identity. He states that he has failed to gain the greatest honor as a knight "par ma maluaistie y ai failli."'4 At
year old Lancelot fails for the first time in a quest and
to him, who by virtue of the conquest of the Dolorous
Garde had become the best knight in the world, this failure has, necessarily, to appear a severe setback, a blemish
on his honor, and reason enough to maintain an incognito
throughout further exploits.
Lancelot is by no means the only Arthurian knight who,
out of guilt or shame, hides his name from the world. Best
known amongst fellow sufferers are perhaps Yvain who,
tien's poem grows organically out of the material preceding it while the Charrette seems to have a random
and incoherent beginning. Rather than assuming that the
112 ff.
sans raison. . ... Li escus qui au col li pent & dont il est
couers par deuant . senefie que autresi quil se met entre
11" . Mais les armes que il porte & que nus qui
similar, though less titillating, version of GueniBvre's abduction and rescue with a prose adaptation of Chr6tien's
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179.
88-154.
University of Houston
of his art.
point about both the poet and the painter is that each
upheld the classical-Christian traditional values, the old
his belief in the importance of man in an ordered universe. "The essential and tragic ambiguity of the human
animal" is the theme of Paradise Lost as a poem,4 and
with quiet dignity the last twenty-six lines reduce the
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