"The Knight with the Lion (Yvain)" pgs 295-324

Comparing the opening prologue of "Erec and Enide" and the opening of "The Knight with the Lion (Yvain)," the setup is very different. In "Erec and Enide," Chretien creates a prologue with parallels that will be seen throughout the story. In "The Knight with the Lion (Yvain)," he opens it with an explanation about how these stories were told in King Arthur's courts and the types of stories that were told. Although Chretien does not give us a proverb, he gives us a small lesson about love. He says that love used to be for people who were "courtly and valiant and generous and honourable" but now peasants have the right to love. Chretien says that the peasants just "claim" to know about love but really just make "a mockery of it" (295). This suggests that possibly there is no way to parallel what is going on in the story with a proverb. The romance of Yvain and Laudine cannot be characterized, therefore a proverb cannot be placed at the beginning of the story. I think that the small lesson about love is very interesting, considering the large theme of love in this story. I thought that it was very interesting that Chretien capitalized the word "love" to make is more of a person than a thing that happens to you. The word "love" is thrown around a lot in the text where Yvain first sees Laudine and he is in love with her and how love makes people slaves. It is all very interesting how love is the most important theme in Chretien's works. Other than it being a classic story of a knight who falls in love with a beautiful maiden, why is love so important to and imperative to have in these stories?