Customer Reviews

Erec and Enide

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Since about the middle of the 20th century, it has become increasingly difficult to find poetic translations of long poems. This trend has recently been reversing, with some excellent translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey -- and Ruth Harwood Cline's translations of Troyes' works joins this new and welcome trend.

Most reviews and reviewers will concentrate on the plot -- I want to focus on the translation itself. For too long there has been a philosophy of translation that does not see any value in translating poems in the forms in which they were written. With longer poems especially, more "literal" and plot-driven prose translations have been the norm. But prose is not how these works were written, and it is not how they were meant to be read or heard. They are poems, and only a poetic translation will be able to communicate the full meaning of the poem being translated. Meaning in a poem lies not just in the plot and characters, or even in the particular words used -- though all of this is true -- but also in the rhythms and rhymes, the music, of the poem. Cline's poetic translation thus translates too the music of the poems she translates. We get the full beauty of the works only when we read them the way they were meant to be read: as poems. One hopes Cline continues to translate poems of this period into English.

And now, for a slight aside: Do not read Cervantes' "Don Quixote" until you have read all of Troyes' works, for you will miss almost all the jokes and the full satirical impact of the novel.

I am not a scholar. But I am a student these twenty years of Medieval history. I have studied Welsh, Scot, Irish and English Medieval history; in addition, I have read books and materials concerning the politics and the culture, and the faith and the myths. Based on this background, I wish to express how very much I thoroughly enjoyed reading Erec and Enide. Ruth Harwood Cline's English translation of this twelfth century poem, written by Chretien de Troyes, touches our senses by its rhythms and rhymes in the rhythmic beat this produces in the poem. Cline's translation also tickles our intellect because through it we can read the ecclesiastical elements and classical motifs. The Celtic legend, Griselda, which I have not read and is mentioned in the introduction, forms the skeleton of Erec and Enide's story. Cline further provides a history background for the poem within the introduction and the notes section.

I noticed the Arthurian legend and the Christian symbolism portrayed through the characters of Erec, Enide and King Arthur. I also noticed the "hero's journey." (See The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell)Each test proved both Erec and Enide more worthy of attaining their goal with the final test being the "Court of Joy."

This is the first of Chretien de Troyes' poems and I highly recommend it.