#cliges

[tiodolma]

chretien de troyes be like:

GAWAIN THE MAN WITH MANY BESTFRIENDS.

#arthuriana #cliges #gawain #gawaine #chretien de troyes #lancelot knight of the cart #yvain knight with the lion #there's lancelot alexander and yvain lol

[who-do-i-know-this-man]

⚠️Vote for whomever YOU DO NOT KNOW⚠️‼️

#ultimate obscure blorbo #polls #round 3 #Songster (The Motu Power Tour) #Soredamors (Cliges by Chretien de Troyes)

[trans-cuchulainn]

me in 2020 apparently: ah yes chretien's four romances-- *is interrupted by a messenger who comes and whispers in my ear* what the fuck is a cliges

#i think i've probably read it? but fuck if i can tell you ANYTHING that happens in it #straight up forgot it existed my bad #arthurian #for those unfamiliar with chretien's romances. there are apparently five of them. i just forgot cliges existed #the others are yvain/knight of the lion - lancelot/knight of the cart - erec et enide - perceval/story of the grail (unfinished)

[taliesin-the-bored]

Arthurian headcanon no. 1: Sir Galahad the Weird and his dubious fashion choices

The canon: 

Percival’s sister, known as the Grail Heroine, makes Galahad a sword belt out of her hair, which was cut off when she became a nun and which she had previously been carrying around in a box because of a prophecy. To the best of my recollection, there is never any mention of him taking it off. 

The headcanon: 

Galahad never stops wearing the hair belt. People notice it but are too weirded out or intimidated to enquire about it, with the possible exception of random old ladies like Dame Clarys. Her reaction to his explanation (something along the lines of, “This was given to me by a most noble lady…no, we are both aroace; she is a nun…was a nun; she’s dead now… I really needed a belt, and she had this box of hair… Why? There was a prophecy…) would be, “That’s nice, dear”, because she too is an icon.

#Sir Galahad #The infamous hair belt #Clarys’ husband is Cliges and she tells him to gatecrash Uther’s party to bring him magic cherries #as one does #Weird is wonderful #Arthuriana

[arthurianashipbracket]

cligès and fenice from the roman de la poire (paris, bnf, fr2186 3v), book cover of the lettres gothiques édition

[ID 1: an old-style painting of a young man and woman both wearing blue facing each other. the woman wears a crown. /end ID 1 ID 2: a book cover of cligès with a white cover which displays a woman lying in bed while a man watches over her. /end ID 2]

cligès is the son of alexander and soredamors and the rightful heir to the greek throne, though his uncle currently rules. he falls in love with his uncle's wife, fenice, and while he is away at his great-uncle arthur's court becoming a knight, they remain in love. fenice attempts to fake her death to be with cligès but is discovered. she is rescued by cligès and they go to arthur for help in taking back the throne, but the uncle dies while they're away so they're free to marry.

soredamors is the sister of gawain, and falls in love with alexander when he visits arthur's court. the two pine over each other for a while until guinevere decides that enough is enough and sets them up. they marry and soredamors gives birth to cligès before they all return to greece. they are very cute, they spend ages questioning whether they're in love, their love juxtaposed with a war, soredamors' little debates with herself (as taken from the submitter: 'i am really fond of soredamors' little internal monologue agonizing about whether she should call alexander her sweet friend or not, it's so real and cute to me (also guinevere then comes in and calls him friend easily iirc, which. like. love's overthinking)')

#once again apologies for the images... #cligès #fenice #alexander #soredarmors #cligès x fenice #cliges x fenice #alexander x soredamors #arthuriana ship bracket #arthuriana #arthurian literature #arthurian legend

[alwaysunabasheddelusion]

I finished reading Chretien de Troyes’ Cliges and I’m pretty sure I spent the entire time questioning Fenice’s decisions. I know, honor, blah blah, but HONESTLY 

Cliges: I’m in love with you but you’re married to my uncle :C 

Fenice: I’m in love with you too but I’m married to your uncle :C (not by her own choice bc LOL obs) 

Cliges: what if we ran away to another country together? 

Fenice: but then people would GOSSIP about us and that would be TERRIBLE. We have to maintain good reputations. what if I fake my death and then you entomb me in like a private tower or something where you can visit me? 

Cliges: I’m in

#also honestly #the agonizing over how to get out of sleeping with her husband #bc if she slept with him she couldn't sleep with Cliges later #like #girl #I know this was written in the 12th century but #it was a lot

[leosparkflame]

r u an arctic monkeys fan?

HELL YES

I WANNA BE YOUR VACUMM CLEANER

can i call you, her name?

You used to get it in your fishnets. Now you only get it in your nightdress. Discarded all the naught nights for niceness. Landed in a very common crisis. Everything's in order in a black hole. nothing seems as pretty as the past though. Oh, the boys a slag, the best you ever had. The best you ever had is just a memory. Flipping through a tiny book of sex tips Remember when the boys where all electric? Cliging' till I'm getting sentimental. That Bloody Mary is lacking Tabasco. Remember when you used to be a rascal?

How did this song get the weirdest most obscure music video of all time. I will never know-

Can't forget when I got mugged in a dark corner of town in a dark blue trench coat by two inexperienced muggers who threatened me AFTER they already had my phone in their hands that was blasting Arabella by Arctic Monkeys!!

My days are best when gets itself behind that little lady sittin' in the passenger side It's much less picturesque without her catching the light. The horizon tries but it's just not as kind on the eyes. Arabella's got a 70's head. But she's a moder lover, it's an exploration. She's made of outer space. And her lips are like the galaxys edge. And her kiss the color of the constellation falling into place. (Askin' if) I can have one of those (Organic) cigarettes she smokes.

"Do I wanna Know?" music video changed my brain chemistry at 8 years old and I have never recovered.

#arctic monkeys #they just make cool music #arctic monkeys enthusiaist

[mask131]

Fantasy read-list: A-3.5

After an article about “Greco-Roman fantasy” or Antique fantasy, I also have found an article evoking the role and importance of the Arthurian myth in fantasy (well, two articles actually). 

The first one is an article by Sara Doke, who offers her own chronology of the Arthurian literature. You will be able to compare it with my original Arthuriana post, and see the slight differences.

1) For Sara Doke, the beginning of it all, the foundation of the Arthurian literature, the first works of the Arthurian world as we understand it today, would be Geoffrey of Monmouth’s works: The Prophecies of Merlin, The History of the Kings of Britain, and the Life of Merlin. (You will often hear these orks referred to by their Latin names, such as Vita Merlini or Prophetiae Merlini).

2) Then, there was the “spark” that actually ignited and gave life to the Arthurian legend and literature. This “spark” was a set of two authors, who used the work of Monmouth as a basis for their work. On one side, Robert Wace with his Roman de Brut, followed by his Roman de Rou (not to be confused by Layamon’s own Roman de Brut, an English rewrite of the original French epic). On the other side, the author I heavily talked about in my original post: Chrétien de Troyes, the “father of the matter of Britain”, and the shaper of the Arthurian myth as we know it today - with his five novels, Erec and Enide, Cliges, Yvain the Knight of the Lion, Lancelot the Knight of the Cart, and Perceval the Story of the Grail. 

3) The third step of the Arthurian evolution was a series of works that slowly shifted the focus of the plot and stories away from the knights of the Round Table themselves, away from their individual and personal adventures, to rather follow the quest of the Grail, which became the main “end-goal” of the Arthuriana. This was the time of Robert of Robon who, through his cycle of works (Joseph d’Arimathie, Merlin, and others lost to time), opened the way for the Vulgate Cycle (or “Lancelot-Grail”), with its History of Merlin, Lancelot Proper, Quest for the Holy Grail, Death of King Arthur... The Vulgate Cycle was then followed by the Post-Vulgate Cycle, which took back the material, books and stories of the Vulgate, but fused them with another very popular literary work of the time: the Prose Tristan. 

4) After the Post-Vulgate Cycle, Sara Doke notes that there was a disinterest in the matter of Britain and the Arthuriana throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. We will have to wait until sir Thomas Malory’s work, Le Morte d’Arthur, for a new Arthurian boom/Arthurian wave. By gathering together the versions of the Vulgate, of the Post-Vulgate and of the Chrétien novels, sir Thomas Mallory created a work that would become THE defining story of the Arthurian legend, and the main reference for all posterior Arthurian authors. Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, T. H. White’s The Once and Future King (later adapted into the famous Disney movie The Sword in the Stone), Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Stenbeck’s The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights... They all were inspired by and taking their Arthurian vision from Le Morte d’Arthur. 

5) Sara Doke concludes her chronology by a handful of more modern works, that truly turn the Arthurian myth into moder “fantasy”. Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon. Mary Stewart’s Arthurian novels (The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, The Last Enchantment, The Wicked Day). Bernard Cornwell’s The Warlord Chronicles. Lawhead’s The Pendragon Cycle. Doke also mentions French authors that English-speaker might not be accustomed to: René Barjavel with his L’Enchanteur (The Enchanter), Michel Rio with his Merlin et Morgane, Jean Markale with his Le Cycle du Graal, Jean-Louis Fetjaine with his Le Pas de Merlin followed by Brocéliande... 

To conclude this post, we leave Sara Doke for another article, this time written by P.J.G. Mergey, who is rather focused on movies based on the Arthurian myth. He does mention a non-movie piece, Wagner’s opera Parsifal, to prove that the Arthurian texts have always been producing visual entertainment. In terms of actual movies, Mergey mentions 2004′s King Arthur, John Boorman’s Excalibur, 2007′s The Last Legion and 1995′s The First Knight.  As he speaks of The Last Legion, he mentions that the mystery of the “missing legion” was notably brought to the public by Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle of the Ninth, a historical novel that was adapted two times nto a movies - in 2011, by the same name, and in 2010 as “Centurion”. 

Two last mentions. Talking about the character of Mebd/Mabd, Mergey mentions an old Irish epic I am not sure I talked about before: Tain Bo Cuailnge, The Cattle Raid of Cooley, of which Mebd/Mabd is one of the main characters.

And finally - since this is a French article talking about king Arthur, one work HAD to be evoked. Kaamelott. The British have their Arthurian parody in the shape of Monty Python’s Holy Grail, we have Kaamelott. Kaamelott started out in 2005 as a humoristic shortcom depicting the daily life of king Arthur and the characters of the Arthurian legend, who are either completely logical and reasonable characters faced with the inherent craziness and absurdity of the Arthuriana, or actually incompetent, flawed and caricatural characters a far cry from their original fictional selves. On top of deconstructing the myth itself, the humor of the series was also historical, since it replaces the king’s life in the context of the crumbling of the Roman Empire and the invasions of the barbarians from the north. This series’ massive success led to it having six full seasons, that slowly went from short comedy skits to actual full, serious, dramatic television episodes - and its fame hasn’t stopped, since very recently a trilogy of movies meant to conclude the series was announced, with the first movie being released in 2021. 

#fantasy read-list #fantasy watch-list #watch list #movies #fantasy literature #arthurian literature #arthuriana #arthurian movie #arthurian legend #arthurian myth #read-list

[tiodolma]

another episode of "Everybody Loves Gawain."

Therefore, he asks for a little time, not wishing to prefer his request until he is sure of her pleasure. But he asked for no respite or delay in accepting the cup of gold. He takes the cup, and courteously begs my lord Gawain to accept this cup as a gift from him, which Gawain did most reluctantly.

...gawain is just the big bro of all this young ones lol

#arthuriana #gawain #cliges #alexander #chretien de troyes #heli blobbing #this text is so fun

[liminalpsych]

My collection groooows

Left to right:

The Complete Arthurian Encyclopedia

Gallant & True (an Arthurian zine I think I backed on Kickstarter at some point, it’s BEAUTIFUL)

The Mabinogian (Sioned Davies translation)

Black Book of Carmarthen

Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain (Faletra translation, also includes Vita Merlini and a bunch of excerpts from various texts eg Nennius)

The Lais of Marie de France (Waters translation)

Lanzelet (I tried reading it. I’ll try again. It’s so dry)

Chretien de Troyes: Lancelot, Erec and Enide, Yvain, Cliges (Ruth Harwood Cline verse translation, I only just now realized they’re out of order, it’s gonna bug me but not enough to fix it and take another picture)

Perlesvaus (Nigel Bryant)

Lancelot-Grail books 1-10 (including Post-Vulgate and chapter summaries)

Silence (Le Roman de Silence)

An Introduction to the Gawain Poet (Putter)

Le Morte d’Arthur (Keith Baines version)

Of Giants (look, Cohen posted some beautifully gay Galehaut/Lancelot and Green Knight and Gawain commentary excerpts on Tumblr and I couldn’t resist)

Arthurianism in Early Plantagenet England (recommended to me by someone who almost did her doctoral thesis on this topic until learning she’d been beaten to it by this text—a history of Arthurianism including the larping that a bunch of nobility did. It just arrived in the mail, I haven’t read it yet)

The Goddodin (Gillian Clarke version; not pictured on the shelf because it’s on my poetry shelf instead. It’s so beautifully translated though, highly recommend Clarke’s version)

Also not pictured: anything I have in ebook format (Tolkien’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, various modern fiction)

And then there’s the Arthurian adjacent and medieval and Renaissance stuff that isn’t really Arthurian but it’s related, so same shelf.

Return to Avalon (short story collection, modern, found at a used book store, why not)

The Book of Chivalry of Geoffrey de Charny (picked this up as a larpwriting reference forever ago, it’s a fascinating read)

Various editions of the Compleat Anachronist, the SCA’s publication

Life in a Medieval City by Gies (I don’t actually remember where I got this or why I have it or if it’s any good. I’m guessing it was another larpwriting reference)

The Book of the Courtier - Castiglione (larp prop and larpwriting reference, actually a really neat read)

Prism Knights by Winter J Kiakas (queer knight short story collection)

Letter Writing in Renaissance England (got this used as a larpwriting reference and it has been SO USEFUL and so fascinating!)

#reading list #arthuriana #Arthurian literature

[who-do-i-know-this-man]

⚠️Vote for whomever YOU DO NOT KNOW⚠️‼️

#ultimate obscure blorbo #polls #round 1 #Sora Kamui (1bitheart) #Soredamors (Cliges by Chretien de Troyes)

[rjalker]

And now I'm going to at least fix The Knight of the Cart because Lancelot is the best knight.

he has the most interesting story for one thing, for another Erec turned into a massive abusive jerk, and Cliges was literally too lazy to flee the country. and Yvain is the epitime of the "you had one job"

will this also hurt my wrist?

yes.

but the footnotes piss me off, especially because half of them are a single, useless, unenlightening word

[ballwizard]

Clige

[fecto-forgo]

the character you’re thinking about is sagramore (see here if you like, it has a few sources: https://nightbringer.se/the-legend-of-king-arthur/arthurian-characters/s-arthurian-characters/sagramore/) but the character in the poll is soredamors, a sister of gawain in cliges (by chretien de troyes). they’re different characters, no connection! (arthurian names are hard so i get it :))

OH I JUST FORGOT THEY HAD SIMILAR NAMES LMAO

#ask #my brain is mushy rn and i have given up on remembering gawains extensive story dependant family tree </3

[thelibraryiscool]

11 & 15 for book asks, please 📚

Good evening!

11. What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?

Discounting the medieval stuff I've been reading, which has been out for quite some time (but seriously, Chretien de Troyes's Cliges, anyone?) I'll say, for example (among many!), Cane, by Jean Toomer. I'd like to reread it soon, actually, but I found the language beautiful and lots there to think about.

15. Did you read any books that were nominated for or won awards this year (Booker, Women’s Prize, National Book Award, Pulitzer, Hugo, etc.)? What did you think of them?

Probably? I don't pay too much attention. I know The Colony by Audrey Magee was longlisted for the Booker, and I found it to be subtle and nuanced in all the right ways, and very relevant to my interests. I also read Postcolonial Love Poem which won the Pulitzer last year, and that was an exceptional book of poetry that's doing something really striking with language and expression and balancing emotion and conceptual heft.

send me end of year book asks!

#nonbinaryjomarch #ask #ask game #thanks for these!

[goji-pilled]

I'd recommend some cute animal videos. Those tend to help a little.

I'm a little late to this one but the solution to my problem ended up being pressing my face into my pillow real hard, cliging to my big plush shark and just not looking anywhere

#felix answers #i mean i didnt sleep well or anything #but i did sleep in the end