music.wikisort.org - Poet

Thomas of Britain (also known as Thomas of England) was a poet of the 12th century. He is known for his Old French poem Tristan, a version of the Tristan and Iseult legend that exists only in eight fragments, amounting to around 3,300 lines of verse, mostly from the latter part of the story. It is calculated that this represents about one sixth of the original.

Works

Because Thomas has an "obvious dependence" on Wace's 1155 Roman de Brut,[1] Tristan was written between 1155 and 1160, possibly for Eleanor of Aquitaine,[2] since the work suggests close ties with the court of Henry II. Beyond this, his identity is obscure; it has been speculated that he is to be identified with the "Thomas" who wrote the Romance of Horn, but this is unsupported.[3] It is similar to the Tristan-story Chevrefoil by Marie de France, but either author could have borrowed from the other, or both from a third source.[4]

Although Thomas's own text is fragmentary, later adaptations of his work make it possible to reconstruct what is missing:

• Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan (Middle High German), left incomplete c. 1210, though fortuitously it covers all those parts of Thomas's work which are lost. Gottfried expanded the story by about a third, while nonetheless remaining fairly faithful to Thomas.
• Brother Robert's Old Norse Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar (Saga of Tristram and Isond), written in 1226 (prose), condensing the story.
• The Middle English Sir Tristrem (verse, late 13th Century), a much abbreviated retelling.
• The Italian La Tavola Ritonda (prose, 14th century).

Thomas' version is the earliest known representative of the "courtly branch" of the legend, to which Gottfried's also belongs. This branch differs from the "common" or "primitive" versions of Béroul and Eilhart von Oberge, in that greater emphasis is placed on pleasing the sensibilities and expectations of a courtly audience. Some scholars have theorized an "Ur-Tristan", an original French version that inspired all later accounts. Joseph Bédier attempted to reconstruct this original from the evidence provided by the later versions.

See also

• Anglo-Norman literature

References

Editions and translations

• Thomas, Les fragments du Roman de Tristan, ed. Bartina H. Wind, Paris/Geneva 1960.
• Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan, with the suriviving fragments of the Tristran of Thomas, translated A.T. Hatto, Penguin, 1960.
• The Saga of Tristram and Ísönd, translated with an introduction by Paul Schach, University of Nebraska Press 1973.

External links

• Tristan of Thomas of Britain in French Wikisource.
• Complete text of three fragments
• Text of three fragments and modern French translation
• The Carlisle Fragment of Thomas's Tristan, translated J. Shoaf
• Text of 6 fragments
• The Romance of Tristan & Iseult Drawn from the best French Sources and Retold by J. Bédier Rendered into English by H. Belloc at Project Gutenberg.

На других языках

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- [en] Thomas of Britain

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[es] Tomás de Inglaterra

Tomás de Inglaterra o de Bretaña (en inglés Thomas of Britain) fue un prominente poeta anglo-normando del siglo XII.[1] Es conocido por su poema en francés «Tristán», una versión de la leyenda arturiana de Tristán e Isolda,[2] de la cual solo existen ocho fragmentos de alrededor de 3 300 líneas de verso, sobre todo de la última parte de la historia. También se calcula que representa cerca de una sexta parte de la historia original.

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[fr] Thomas d'Angleterre

Thomas d'Angleterre (Tumas de Britanje) (actif entre 1170 et 1180[1]), est un clerc et poète normand[1]. Il est connu pour son poème en ancien français Tristan, une version de la légende de Tristan et Iseut.

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[ru] Томас Британский

То́мас Брита́нский — англо-нормандский поэт XII века, по-видимому, при дворе Генриха II Плантагенета и Элеоноры Аквитанской. Какие-либо биографические сведения о нем отсутствуют.

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