TRISTAN AND ISOLDE ARTHURIAN CHARACTERS AND THEMES Norris J. Lacy, Series Editor King Arthur A Casebook Edited by Edward Donald Kennedy Lancelot and Guinevere A Casebook Edited by Lori J. Walters Tristan and Isolde A Casebook Edited by Joan Tasker Grimbert Arthurian Women A Casebook Edited by Thelma S. Fenster The Grail A Casebook Edited by Dhira B. Mahoney Perceval/Parzival A Casebook Edited by Arthur Groos and Norris Lacy TRISTAN AND ISOLDE A Casebook EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JOAN TASKER GRIMBERT Routledge Taylor &. Francis Group New York London First published by: Published in 2002 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 Published in Great Britain by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE This edition published 2012 by Routledge: Routledge Routledge Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group 711 Third Avenue 2 Park Square, Milton Park New York, NY 10017 Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Copyright ©1995 Joan Tasker Grimbert All rights reserved Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tristan and Isolde: a casebook I edited by Joan Tasker Grimbert. p. cm.-(Arthurian characters and themes; vol. 2) (Garland reference library of the humanities; vol. 1514) Includes bibliograhical references. ISBN 0-8153-0654-7 1. Tristan (Legendary character) in the arts. 2. Iseult (Legendary character) in the arts. I. Grimbert, Joan T. II. Series. III. Series: Garland reference library of the humanities; vol. 1514. NX652.T75T75 1995 700-dc20 94--25538 CIP ISBN 0-415-93910-0 For Bob Contents Preface ix Nortis J. Lacy Introduction xiii Joan Tasker Grimbert Acknowledgments ciii Select Bibliography cv Tristan: The Celtic and Oriental Material Re-examined 3 W.J. McCann Love and the New Patriarchy: Tristan and Isolde 37 Leslie W. Kabine How Lovers Lie Together: Infidelity and Fictive Discourse in the Roman de Tristan 75 E. Jane Burns The Representation of the Lovers' Death: Thomas' Tristan as Open Text 95 Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner The Glass Palace in the Folie d'Oxford 111 Jean-Charles Payen Tristan the Artist in Gottfried's Poem 125 W.T.H. Jackson Gottfried von Strassburg: Tristan and the Arthurian Tradition 147 William C. McDonald La Parole amoureuse: Amorous Discourse in the Prose Tristan 187 Emmanuele Baumgartner vii viii Contents Radix Amoris: The Tavola Ritonda and Its Response to Dante's Paolo and Francesca 207 Donald L. Hoffman Malory's "Tale of Sir Tristram": Source and Setting Reconsidered 223 Dhira B. Mahoney Tristan in Medieval Art 255 Julia Walworth Swinburne's Tristram of Lyonesse: Visionary and Courtly Epic 301 Antony H. Harrison "That Most Beautiful of Dreams": Tristram and Isoud in British Art of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries 325 Christine Poulson Wagner's Tristan und Isolde: Opera as Symphonic Poem 357 Joseph Kerman Wagner and Decadence 377 Raymond Furness "This too you ought to read": Bédier's Roman de Tristan et Iseut 425 Edward J. Gallagher Tristram the Transcendent 451 Frederic Yves Carpenter Cocteau's Tristan and Iseut: A Case of Overmuch Respect 473 Stephen Maddux Tristan and Isolde in Modern Literature: L'éternel retour 505 Michael S. Batts Preface Norris J. Lacy This is Volume II of "Arthurian Characters and Themes," a new series of casebooks from Garland Publishing. The series includes volumes devoted to the best-known characters from Arthurian legend: Tristan and Isolde, Arthur, Lancelot and Guenevere, Merlin, Gawain, and Perceval. One is also devoted to Arthurian women in general, and one to the Grail. Others may be added. Each volume offers an extended introductory survey and a bibliography and presents some twenty major essays on its subject. Several of the essays in each volume are newly commissioned for the series; the others are reprinted from their original sources. The previously published contributions date for the most part from the past fifteen years, although a few older, "classic" essays are included in several of the volumes, the criterion being the continuing importance of the study. All contributions are presented in English, and each volume includes essays that are translated here for the first time. Heaviest emphasis remains on the development of the legend and its characters during the Middle Ages, but appropriate attention has been given also to modern, even very recent, treatments. Similarly, the central focus is on literature, but without excluding important discussions of visual, musical, and filmic arts. Thus, a number of the volumes, including the present one, are intently interdisciplinary in focus. The proliferation of scholarly studies of Arthurian material is daunting. When the Bibliographical Bulletin of the Arthurian Society began publishing annual bibliographies, the first volume ix