Cligès

Chrétien de Troyes · c. 1176 CE · Poem · French · Medieval

A Greek prince crosses to Arthur's court to be knighted and falls in love on the voyage over; a generation later his son comes west on the same errand and returns to find his uncle married to the woman he wants. Fenice refuses to be a second Iseult, dividing herself between two men, so her nurse brews a draught that leaves the emperor with a wife he only ever has in his sleep. Chrétien wrote it against the Tristan story he knew, and it is the most argumentative of his romances about what love may be permitted to do.

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Lineage

• responds to ↑ Tristan and Iseult
  Anonymous · c. 1170 CE · Myth / Legend

Attributes

Closest analogues

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