Yvain, or the Knight With the Lion

Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Adult | Published in 1176

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Lines 1-1588

Lines 1589-2638

Lines 2774-4634

Lines 4635-5770

Lines 5771-6808

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Quiz

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Themes

The Importance of Chivalry

Amid the chaos and darkness of the Middle Ages, a credo arose that inspired the knightly community. Called chivalry in honor of the cavalry officers who pursued it, the code demanded that knights offer fealty to their kings and to God, display gallantry in battle, act charitably toward those in need, behave with gentlemanly fealty toward the ladies they loved, and go on quests to prove to themselves and others their chivalrous nature. A prime example of chivalry is Yvain, the hero of the story.

Knights must be loyal. They are firstly devoted to the Christian God and sworn to act in ways that honor Him and His Commandments. They also serve their noble lords faithfully. Yvain, for example, is devoted to his king, Arthur. He hears Calogrenant’s account of his misadventure with another knight and decides to avenge his cousin’s loss: “I’ll go thence, / And take revenge for your shame” (24).

Yvain displays great skill in battle, and he overcomes and kills Esclados, the knight who guards the fountain visited by Calogrenant. When Yvain marries Laudine, Gawain warns him not to grow soft and complacent, and he agrees, joining his fellow knights on a quest for victories on the jousting circuit, where Yvain amply proves his mettle. He also readily accepts battle against long odds—three brothers who want to kill Lunete, two demons that hold a castle hostage, a giant who threatens a baron’s family—especially if the cause is just.

A knight must display charity toward the helpless, and Yvain saves the life of Laudine’s lady in waiting, Lunete, fights the giant to rescue a baron’s children, delivers 300 maidens from the clutches of demons, and defends a woman wronged by her sister. When Yvain learns that his battle to the death with Esclados has left the county of Landuc defenseless—and its lady, Laudine, widowed and in deep mourning—he feels great sorrow for her, falls in love with her, and takes her hand as her new husband and champion.

In one respect, however, Yvain violates the code of chivalry: He neglects his promise to return to Laudine after a year of jousting quests. Yvain suffers mightily for his callous mistake and must spend most of the story earning back her love. It is Laudine’s rejection of him that teaches Yvain the last, and perhaps most important, rule of chivalry: never to disrespect the love that is offered to him. In his unwitting battle with Gawain, Yvain shows aspects of a new maturity by offering to surrender the moment he discovers that Gawain is his opponent.

It is no surprise, then, that Yvain also readily surrenders himself to Laudine. When she accepts him once again into her life, Yvain has completed his true quest: to love her with the unyielding devotion of the completely chivalrous knight.

A Desire for Justice

Deep in the heart of every knight lives a burning desire to right the wrongs of the world. In Yvain, justice figures prominently, and the principal acts of the main characters revolve around remedying unfairness. Yvain bravely displays this trait on several occasions, and a number of other characters show similar courage in the face of treachery.

Firstly, he sees that his duel with Esclados has torn from Landuc its prime defender and taken from Lady Laudine her beloved husband. Though this wrong is unintentional, Yvain takes it upon himself to set it right immediately, and he feels such sorrow for Laudine that he falls in love with her and steps in to fill the shoes of Esclados in her life and in defending her realm and people.

Yvain then commits, perhaps unintentionally but incompetently and callously, the unpardonable sin of neglecting his oath to his beloved wife, and for this she shuns him. Yvain’s quest to regain her love involves several interlocking deeds of valor, each of which rights a wrong. Yvain protects a lady—who has cured him of insanity—from devastation at the hands of an evil count. He saves a lion from the jaws of a dragon. The giant Harpin visits cruelty on a castle and its subjects, and Yvain confronts and kills the huge fiend. The jealous and conniving Seneschal plots to have Lunete executed for treason, under false pretenses, and Yvain comes to her rescue. Two demons beleaguer a castle, enslaving hundreds, until Yvain kills them and sets free the castle’s occupants. A lady cheats her sister out of her inheritance, and Yvain defends the wronged woman and thereby helps balance the scales of justice.

Not every good deed of this sort is performed by Yvain. Lunete evinces a sincere and continuous loyalty to Laudine, even when that lady loses faith in her. Lunete also holds fast to the idea that Yvain is truly worthy of Laudine, and she risks herself twice to bring them together. The king himself uses all his wiles to maneuver an inheritance dispute toward a just resolution. He tells the malefactor, “For some time now have I known / That you your sister’s right disown, / But she’ll no longer be denied” (211).

One story teaches, with great subtlety, a moral about fairness. It centers on the giant of Brocéliande. His enormous size and ugly countenance give Calogrenant cause to assume that the creature is a thoughtless brute, but the giant disproves the knight’s bias by speaking frankly and thoughtfully, and by providing Calogrenant with precise instructions on how to quest after the magic fountain of the forest. This small scene hints at the author’s advanced moral viewpoint, a perspective that predates by several centuries efforts to reform prejudice based simply on appearance.

Another lesson about fairness manifests in the poem’s women. Queen Gwinevere recites from memory, word for word, a story she just heard. Lunete hurriedly devises a sophisticated ruse that brings Yvain and Laudine together. Laudine manages her court so adroitly that they demand of her something she already wants to do, namely, marry Yvain. A messenger maiden works out the best search route and quickly locates Yvain so that he can defend her lady’s inheritance case. These women reveal mental sophistication, moral courage, persistence, and grace under pressure. It is not, then, merely the men who are the heroes—an idea quite advanced for the Middle Ages.

Love as the True Quest

Three main types of love feature prominently in Yvain: romantic, brotherly, and friendly. Each type contains loyalty, mutual affection, and deep concern for the other person.

A centerpiece of chivalry is courtly love, or “Amor.” The author despairs over the loss of this Arthurian trait in later centuries; he laments that true romance, “To which, once rich and strong, / So few disciples now belong / That the order is nigh disgraced, / And Amor himself much abased” (7). Yvain instead focuses on a tale of true love won, lost, and won again, as the hero literally fights his way to where he discovers his beloved, wins her, commits an error and loses her, then fights numerous battles on behalf of the beleaguered in an effort to find his way back to her.

In courtly love, a knight displays gentlemanliness, courtesy, kindness, and devotion. Yvain does so almost perfectly—he demonstrates deep concern for the widow of the knight he has slain, falls in love with her, and becomes her husband and champion. Then he allows his efforts as a jouster to pull his attention from her. His immense regret, on realizing his callous error, drives him insane until he’s cured by another great lady, whom he repays by saving her from an evil warlord. She offers to be his lady, but his chivalrous nature prevents him from accepting—Yvain is, after all, dedicated to another lady. Instead, he quests after great deeds of courage on behalf of many beleaguered peoples until his renown brings him once again to the attention of his true love, who finally accepts him back into her life.

Brotherly love also dominates a large portion of the story. It comes into play most forcefully when Yvain’s dearest friend and jousting companion, Sir Gawain, unknowingly confronts Yvain in a battle to decide a legal controversy. When they realize their opponent’s identity, each immediately backs off. As Yvain puts it, “If I had known that it was you I would never have fought with you […] I am Yvain, / Who loves you more than any man / In all the world doth love, or can” (207-08). They throw down their weapons and take turns surrendering to each other. King Arthur, seeing the devotion between his two knights, is mightily pleased: “‘My lords,’ said he ‘twixt you two, / Lies great affection, as can be seen / By each conceding defeat, I mean’” (210).

A quieter form of love appears as well: the bond of friendship. Lunete—always kind, wise, and beloved by those she works with—recognizes in Yvain a match for her lady Laudine, and she risks her career and life to engineer their marriage. Later, after Yvain’s error alienates Laudine, Lunete is falsely convicted of deliberately trapping her lady with a bad man, but Yvain offers to rescue her from the execution pyre. She protests, not wanting to watch him die in her defense; he answers, “For you have wrought so much for me / I shall not fail, of a surety, / To bring you aid, come what may” (125). Yvain saves her from the fire; later, when he returns to the Brocéliande fountain, Lunete, ever the loyal friend, brings him back to Laudine and persuades them to reconcile.

Another friendship springs up, this one between Yvain and a lion. He saves the beast from a dragon’s clutches, and the lion becomes his devoted companion. After many shared adventures, Yvain realizes that they have bonded as friends and that each is an equal in this relationship: “The lion […] Is mine, and I am his” (213).

Though adventure predominates in Yvain, it is these three types of love that drive the action. Love is Yvain’s true quest: Through his many great deeds, he honors romance, brotherly love, and friendship.