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Deviant Characters and the Limits of Inventio in ‘Le Chevalier et la Charrette’

Deviant Characters and the Limits of Inventio in ‘Le Chevalier et la Charrette’ AbstractThis essay will examine the characterisation of the principal characters and events in ‘Le Chevalier et la Charrette’, a contemporary graphic novel adaption of the Méléagant episode based on Chrétien de Troyes’s Le Chevalier de la charrette, by applying Mieke Bal’s classic study on narratology, in which legendary and ‘deviant’ characters evoke reactions of surprise or revulsion in the reader. The first section will address the limits of inventio in the portrayal of Lancelot, a legendary character whose behaviour and actions are somewhat limited by the reader’s background knowledge of him, whereas the remainder of the essay will focus on the use of the Lady of the Lake as a deviant character in the Méléagant episode. In the graphic novella, the Lady of the Lake is reinvented as a representation of Ankou, the servant of Death in Breton folklore. This allows the author and illustrator of the graphic novella to take advantage of the lacunae in the reader’s background knowledge to present a previously unknown facet of the Lady of the Lake’s character that bridges the gap between literary adaptation and literary appropriation, thereby resulting in a new cultural product that links medieval Arthurian legend to traditional Breton mythology.  http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of the International Arthurian Society de Gruyter

Deviant Characters and the Limits of Inventio in ‘Le Chevalier et la Charrette’

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Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
ISSN
2196-9353
eISSN
2196-9361
DOI
10.1515/jias-2022-0007
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

AbstractThis essay will examine the characterisation of the principal characters and events in ‘Le Chevalier et la Charrette’, a contemporary graphic novel adaption of the Méléagant episode based on Chrétien de Troyes’s Le Chevalier de la charrette, by applying Mieke Bal’s classic study on narratology, in which legendary and ‘deviant’ characters evoke reactions of surprise or revulsion in the reader. The first section will address the limits of inventio in the portrayal of Lancelot, a legendary character whose behaviour and actions are somewhat limited by the reader’s background knowledge of him, whereas the remainder of the essay will focus on the use of the Lady of the Lake as a deviant character in the Méléagant episode. In the graphic novella, the Lady of the Lake is reinvented as a representation of Ankou, the servant of Death in Breton folklore. This allows the author and illustrator of the graphic novella to take advantage of the lacunae in the reader’s background knowledge to present a previously unknown facet of the Lady of the Lake’s character that bridges the gap between literary adaptation and literary appropriation, thereby resulting in a new cultural product that links medieval Arthurian legend to traditional Breton mythology. 

Journal

Journal of the International Arthurian Societyde Gruyter

Published: Sep 1, 2022

Keywords: adaptation; Arthurian graphic novel; Breton folklore; Le Chevalier de la Charrette; Lady of the Lake; Lancelot; Méléagant; narratology

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