Béroul (or Beroul;
Norman ) was a
Norman or
Breton poet of the mid-to-late
12th century
The 12th century is the period from 1101 to 1200 in accordance with the Julian calendar.
In the history of European culture, this period is considered part of the High Middle Ages and overlaps with what is often called the Golden Age' of the ...
. He is usually credited with the authorship of ''Tristran'' (sometimes called ''Tristan''), a
Norman language
Norman or Norman French (, , Guernésiais: , Jèrriais: ) is a ''Langues d'oïl, langue d'oïl'' spoken in the historical region, historical and Cultural area, cultural region of Normandy.
The name "Norman French" is sometimes also used to des ...
version of the legend of
Tristan and Iseult
Tristan and Iseult, also known as Tristan and Isolde and other names, is a medieval chivalric romance told in numerous variations since the 12th century. Of disputed source, usually assumed to be primarily Celtic nations, Celtic, the tale is a ...
, of which just under 4500 verses survive in a manuscript of the 13th century. His name is known only from two references in the text of the poem.
''Tristran'' is the earliest representation of the "common" or "vulgar" version of the legend (the earliest surviving "courtly" version being
Thomas of Britain's). The first half of Béroul's poem is closely paralleled by and related to
Eilhart von Oberge's treatment in
German from the same century, and many of the episodes that appear in Béroul but not Thomas reappear in the later
Prose ''Tristan''. Because of its early date, Béroul's ''Tristran'' has been used extensively for the purpose of
textual criticism
Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts (mss) or of printed books. Such texts may rang ...
, especially in the effort to reconstruct the "Ur-Tristan," the hypothetical first ancestor of all the subsequent Tristan and Iseult
Romances. Stylistically, the poem belongs to the transition in
Old French literature from
epic
Epic commonly refers to:
* Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation
* Epic film, a genre of film defined by the spectacular presentation of human drama on a grandiose scale
Epic(s) ...
to
romance. While not as popular as
Gottfried von Strassburg's ''Tristan'', Béroul's text remains widely acclaimed for its style and thematic content.
Béroul's poem survives in a single manuscript now in the
Bibliothèque Nationale
A library is a collection of books, and possibly other materials and media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or digital (soft copies) materials, and may be a p ...
in Paris, which is missing the first and final sections of the poem. The manuscript also has several
lacunae. The text's condition is poor—possibly corrupt—and debate over the history of the story's transmission, number of authors, and role of scribes continues. Modern questions of authorship now center on whether one or two authors are responsible for the majority of the text—claims of multiple authors, fashionable in the beginning of the 20th century, have not gained wide acceptance.
See also
*
Anglo-Norman literature
Anglo-Norman literature is literature composed in the Anglo-Norman language and developed during the period of 1066–1204, as the Duchy of Normandy and the Kingdom of England were united in the Anglo-Norman realm.
Introduction
The Norman langu ...
Notes
References
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
*
Texte of TristanChapter ''Béroul'' in Pinkernell: "Namen, Titel und Daten der französischen Literatur"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beroul
Writers of Arthurian literature
Norman-language poets
12th-century Normans
12th-century French writers
12th-century French poets
French male poets
Tristan and Iseult