Tristan

Tristan - Gottfried von Strassburg and Thomas of England. A translation into English by A. S. Kline. Illustrated edition.



Gottfried von Strassburg (died c.1210), writing in Middle High German, re-told the tale of Tristan and Iseult, and their illicit love, basing his version on an earlier 12th century work by Thomas of England, composed in Old French. The original story itself probably derives from Irish or Welsh sources. Gottfried left his work unfinished at his death, but fortuitously the surviving Thomas fragments allow the tale to be told to its end. Gottfried gives us the development of the ill-fated love affair, from its complex start to the lovers’ unhappy separation, in a well-structured and sophisticated manner. Thomas, by no means the lesser poet, writing in a more condensed style, further explores the intricacies of the four-fold relationship between Tristan, Iseult the Fair, and their frustrated spouses, Iseult of the White Hands and King Mark of Cornwall respectively, and completes the tale with the deaths of the ill-fated lovers. Both works employ rhyming couplets, and this unique modern verse translation, while preserving the rhyme scheme, offers a consistent and complete narrative, with a seamless linkage of the two poets’ work.



About the authors:



Little is known of the lives of Thomas and Gottfried. The former appears to have been connected to the court of Henry II of England and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine (d.1204), previously the queen consort of Louis VII of France; she being a noted literary patron. Gottfried was likely neither a knight nor a member of the priesthood, but seems to have held a significant official position in his native Strasbourg. The court of Marie of France (d.1198), the daughter of Eleanor and Louis VII, and Countess of Champagne in north-eastern France, including the cities of Reims and Troyes, may well have provided the literary link between Strasbourg, on the Rhine, and the courts of France and England. Marie, also an important literary patron, notably of Chrétien de Troyes, was regent of the County between 1190 and 1197 at a time when Gottfried may well have been writing the early part of his Tristan.