Here, at last, is an excellent translation in very readable English verse of Yvain; or, Le chevalier an lion by Chrétien de Troyes. Although this poem is generally regarded as Chrétien’s best work, it is not so well known to English readers as his Conte del Graal (Perceval) and his Chevalier de la Charette (Lancelot), which later poets have so often reworked. It may seem strange that Yvain, which was immediately translated into various other languages—including Middle High German and Welsh—was not also put into English at once; for after all it is generally agreed that Chrétien was...

Chrétien de Troyes was the creator of the Arthurian romance as a literary genre: he was the first known writer in Western Europe to put the Celtic legends of King Arthur and his knights into the long romance form in order to illustrate themes from the twelfth-century codes of love and chivalry. His five romances, Erec and Enide, Cligès, Lancelot, Yvain, and Perceval, were written between 1160 and 1190, a period in France of great interest in British legends and folklore. Chrétien was considered an outstanding poet in an exceptionally rich period of literary creativity, and his romances were sensationally...