Tristan Narrative in B ritain

Abstract

The story of Tristan (Tristrem, Tristram) originated in the oral traditions of the Welsh. In the twelfth century, Thomas of Britain's Roman de Tristan introduced the romance of Tristan and Isolde's tragic love into Britain. The thirteenth‐century English redaction of the Roman de Tristan , Sir Tristrem presents the same story in English metre. In the fifteenth century, Sir Thomas Malory's Sir Tristram of Lyonesse, the fifth romance of the Morte Darthur, follows the French model of the Prose Tristan in expanding the romance and integrating it into the Arthurian cycle for the first time. Popular interest in the Tristan story waned during the Renaissance and Enlightenment. In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, authors Walter Scott, Matthew Arnold, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Algernon Charles Swinburne showed renewed interest in the story, each offering his own version. A number of modern versions have since appeared.