Hélène Tétrel

Choosing the “right” text of Chrétien de Troyes

A look back at a long-running editorial debate

Fimmtudaginn 4. september 2025 kl. 16.30 / Thursday, September 4, 2025, at 16.30
Fyrirlestrasal Eddu (E-103) / Edda auditorium (E-103)

Medievalists know that textual traditions are unstable, but when looking at Parcevals saga or at the Strengleikar, scholars are confronted with a particularly complex situation, having to look at the French texts as well as the Scandinavian ones. Not only are the manuscripts numerous and sometimes hard to access, but the codicological, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds also differ. These difficulties may be strictly philological to begin with, but whether one is aware or not, they influence one’s choices. For instance, which edition of the Conte du Graal should be chosen? Many of these questions have to be addressed in a similar way, whether the aim is to compare Parcevals saga and Chrétien’s poem, translate the latter into a modern language, or produce a school edition, because there is no standard edition of the Conte du Graal.

France, the country where the philologist Joseph Bédier presented his theories on editing medieval texts, is also the country where the policy of editing a text from a unique manuscript has been most predominant. This, in turn, has led to long-running debates and sometimes “raging wars” on editorial issues. In this talk, I will look back at the long-running editorial debate which has characterised the study of Chrétien de Troyes.

Hélène Tétrel is professor of medieval literature and language at the University Rouen-Normandie, department of French language, literature and comparative Literature, and member of the research laboratory CEREdI. She works on the translated sagas and has recently published an edition and a study of Breta sögur (La Saga des Bretons, Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2021). She is currently working on a collaborative project on the Conte du Graal and the Parcevals saga.

Fyrirlesturinn verður haldinn á ensku og er öllum opinn. / The talk will be delivered in English and is open to all.

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