Cligés is without a doubt Chrétien de Troyes`s most perplexing

Form and Pattern in Cligés
Norris J. Lacy, University of Kansas
Cligés is without a doubt Chrétien de Troyes’s most perplexing romance.
The author repeatedly interrupts the narrative to speak directly to the rea­
der in some of the most tedious monologues in medieval literature. Furthermore, the action shifts from Greece to Britain and back again, with occasional scenes set in Brittany and Germany. The very interpretation of the
work presents problems: is it in faet an “anti-Tristan”, as it is generally
considered, a n d ---- if s o ------ is it successful as such? A final difficulty
concerns form: sharply divided into two parts whose relationship has been
less than clear to critics, the work proceeds rather haphazardly, its more
or less chronological development fragmented by the numerous monologues
on love and generosity.
Yet, the problems which make the work perplexing simply make it that
much more interesting for the critic. Particularly intriguing is the matter of
form or structure, to which I shall limit myself in this article. Ostensibly,
Chrétien has not constructed the work on the same lines as his other
works. For example, Erec and Yvain both divide easily into three sections
and follow a single hero throughout most of the narrative. Moreover, all
his romances except Cligés concern the hero’s attempt to expiate an error
he has committed. Nonetheless, I suggest that the formal distinctions I
have mentioned are external, and that internally Chrétien has developed
Cligés according to his one unvarying structural technique: the establish­
ment of a pattern of events or images which by its recurrence throughout
the work acquires significance as an organizing and form-conferring principle
in the poem.1
The most conspicuous structural aspect of Cligés is of course its bipartite
division: after stating his intention to teil the story of Cligés, Chrétien
1. I have examined this principle in Erec; see my “Thematic Analogues in Erec," L’Esprit
créateur, IX, No. 4, 267-74.
Nor ris J. Lacy
308
postpones it for some 2400 verses in order to recount first the adventures
of Alexandre and Soredamors. It has been suggested that Chrétien is simply
following his model —— the Tristan story — — in speaking or the father s
life before that of the son and hero. Given Chrétien’s usual attention to
balance and unity, this answer seems too facile; rather, an examination
reveals that the two parts are related not only chronologically but also
thematically and structurally.
In the first half of the roman Chrétien traces the effects of repressed
love on Alexandre and Soredamors, who, despite their nobility, are
strangers to this emotion. During the boat trip across the channel, they are
smitten by love but refuse to admit it, not only to one another, but for
a time to themselves as well. It is their refusal to recognize and admit their
love which causes all their anguish:
Adés croist lor amors et monte;
Mes li uns a de l’autre honte,
Si se coile et cuevre chascuns,
Que il n’an pert flame ne funs
D el charbon qui est soz la fandre.
Por ce n’est pas la chalors mandre,
Einfois dure la chalors plus
Desoz la ?andre que desus.2
Their repressed love inspires Alexandre’s monologues on his distress, the
eyes, and love’s arrow, and then Soredamors’s discourse on her name and
on love.3 Later, Soredamors wants to speak to Alexandre but doesn’t
know how to address him, and the two find frequent excuses to sit near
each other, never having the courage to speak of the subject that torments
them. It is finally the Queen who teils them (vss. 2279-2310) that she knows
they are in love. She counsels them to admit rather than to conceal their
love, telling them:
2. Cligés, ed. Wendelin Foerster (Halle, 1888), vss. 601-08. Subsequent verse references,
given in the text, are to the same edition.
3. It might be mentioned in passing that the monologues, however tedious they may be, do
function effectively as “retarding elements” (see Erich Auerbach, Mimesis (Garden City,
N.Y., 1957), pp. 2-3). That is, they interrupt the narrative and distract us from the action
of the story, thereby suggesting the passage of time or a psychological evolution - princip­
ally the birth and growth of love.
Form and Pattern in Cligés
309
Or vos lo que ja ne queroiz
Force ne volanté d’amor.
Par mariage et par enor
Vos antraconpaigniez ansanble. (vss. 2302-05)
Thus, the theme of the first portion of the work is the repression of love
and the effects of that repression. The idea of concealment, developed in
the story of Alexandre and Soredamors, also provides the thematic link
between the first and second parts. When Cligés and Fénice see each other
for the first time, we are told that they fall in love: Cligés is par amor
conduit (2800), and she, “par buene amor, non par losange, ses iaux
li baille et prant les suens” (2808-09). Fénice describes her joy and her di­
stress to Thessala and soon speaks with Cligés of their feelings. Thus, whereas
Alexandre and Soredamors concealed their love, Cligés and Fénice have no
desire to hide theirs. The obstacles in the way of their love are purely
external. The problem facing them is not that they refuse to admit their
love to themselves and to each other, but that, owing to her marriage to
Alis, they cannot reveal it to others. Alexandre and Soredamors resisted
love and then concealed it through fear, while Cligés and Fénice, who
would welcome love, have concealment forced upon them by circumstances.
Thus, the basic structural principle of the work is the opposition of con­
cealment and revelation.4
It now remains for us to examine Chrétien’s techniques of amplification
and structural elaboration. Haidu has remarked that practically every
episode in the first half of the poem has a close parallel in the second.5
In addition, it can be seen that the first half of the work progresses by a
4. My ideas on the form of Cligés bear a resemblance to those of Peter Haidu (in Aesthetic
Distance in Chrétien de Troyes: Ir ony and Com edy in “Cligés" and “Perceval” (Geneva:
Droz, 1968)), who identifies the contrast of reality and illusion as the structural principle
of the work. He even points out the two disguise scenes, but both his purpose and emphasis are different. He discusses reality and illusion to underline Chrétien’s ironic technique (“Things are rarely what they seem in Cligés”: p. 82), rather than to attach the
episodes to the thematic structure of the entire work. And even though Chrétien undeniably
exploits the contrast between reality and illusion, we may consider it a particular development
of the opposition of concealment and revelation. If I speak of concealment and revelation,
the relationship of the moonlight attack to the thematic structure of the work is clear,
while we can in no way consider that episode an example of the contrast between reality
and illusion.
5. Page 98.
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Nor ris J. Lacy
regular alternation of scenes of chivalry and war with scenes concerning
love. Moreover, Chrétien’s bipartite division of the work is reflected in a
similar division within the first half itself. Beginning with Angrés’s sack
of London, Chrétien presents two sections, almost identical in structure,
in which there is a battle scene. Alexandre takes prisoners and is later rewarded by Arthur; a love scene follows. The single major distinction be­
tween these two portions of the narrative concerns the disposition of
Alexandre’s captives. The first time, he fears for their lives and thus de­
livers them to the Queen. This angers Arthur, who consequently has them
killed. Despite this cruel treatment, we later find Alexandre telling his
prisoners to go and throw themselves on the King’s mercy, for “tant est il
douz et de bon’eire” (vs. 2190) that he will not harm them ----and in faet
he does not. It is perhaps true, as Alexandre says (vss. 2174-75), that only
the Count has deserved to die, but nonetheless we cannot avoid the con­
clusion that Alexandre’s conduct, developing from deception to forthrightness, provides a parallel to the same development between the first
and second halves of the romance. Thus, even a description of the physical
structure of Cligés leads us back to a consideration of the theme of
the work.
Having established the opposition of concealment and revelation, and
having reflected that opposition in the bipartite division of the first part of
Cligés, Chrétien introduces that same motif, cast in numerous forms, into
all parts of the work. The technique is very much like E. M. Forster’s
concept of rhythm in literature, which he defines as “repetition plus varia­
tion”.6 The motif, whether recalled by an episode or a single phrase, may
be seen from the very beginning, but its structural and thematic signi­
ficance becomes apparent only after we read further into the work.
From the first Alexandre is secretive, asking his father to promise him
something unknown. Then, having extracted the promise, he explains that
he wants to go to Arthur’s court. Curiously, his behavior changes upon his
arrival at court, and, far from being secretive, he announces immediately
who he is and lives there for some time, spending and giving away money
freely to win admiration. This contrast between openness and secretiveness
is repeated — but reversed — in the story of Alexandre's son. Cligés, too,
wants to go to Arthur’s court, but unlike his father he is open and honest,
6. Aspects of the Novel (New York, 1927), p. 168.
Form and Fattern in Cligés
311
explaining where he wishes to go and asking his uncle’s permission. Once
there, however, his own behavior changes as he follows his father’s advice
that he conceal his identity at court until he has won the admiration of all
the knights.
The actions of Cligés in Britain constitute the most extended elaboration
of the concealment motif in the work. Learning that Arthur is holding his
court at Oxford, he goes there and engages in tourneys on four successive
days, wearing armor of a different color each day and hiding himself at
night. Only after he has inspired the awe and admiration of all the others
does he relent and reveal his identity.
Thus, Alexandre’s reticence and his concealment of love are emphasized
ironically by the extreme openness and generosity which he demonstrates
at court, whereas Cligés’s forthrightness toward his uncle and Fénice stands
in contrast with the secretiveness which Alexandre had advised him to
show in Britain. The characters’ attitudes and actions merely underline the
tragic faet that the love Cligés and Fénice feel and admit readily is, as I
have indicated above, an impossible love.
The author’s play on the contrast of concealment and revelation continues throughout the work and can be observed, not only in most of the
major episodes, but in relatively insignificant details as well. We see the
pattern reflected in such episodes as that in which the treacherous followers
of Angrés decide to attack Arthur’s camp concealed by the darkness of
the night. However, as Chrétien points out, God hates traitors and teachery and thus causes the moon to shine on their shields and helmets, revealing
their presence to Arthur’s men (vss. 1704—10). The ensuing battle scene
contains a further exposition of the pattern, for Alexandre proposes that
they disguise themselves with the dead traitors’ equipment (vss. 1845-47).
In this way, they succeed in entering the town gates and taking the enemy
by surprise. Later, Cligés will use this same ploy, appropriating an enemy’s
helmet, shield, and horse, and revealing his identity only when he has taken
the Saxons unawares (vss. 3505-70).
The first of these two disguise scenes provides us with the best illustra­
tion of Chrétien’s technique of using an incidental reference, sometimes a
single word, to foreshadow a theme which he will later develop fully. After
Alexandre and his men have disguised themselves, the Greeks find their
equipment left beside the enemies’ bodies and suppose their compatriots to
be dead. Chrétien remarks, almost as an aside, that they were
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Nor ris J. Lacy
. . . con cil qui songe,
Qui por verité croit manconge,
Les fesoient li escu croire
Que ceste manconge fust voire. (vss. 2103-06)
The simile which Chrétien uses in referring to the disguise scene can only
be an obvious, if casual, foreshadowing of Thessala’s magie potion which
makes Alis dream of making love to Fénice and take his dream to be true.
Even the language is similar, for Thessala will teil Fénice:
Avra de vos joie an dormant
Et cuidera tot antreset
Que an veillant sa joie an et,
N e ja rien tandra a songe
Ne a fantosme n’a man?onge. (vss. 3210-14)
The potion works, and . . si tandra le songe a voir” (vs. 3346).
The essential episodes of Cligés are of course this one, in which the magie
potion preserves Fénice’s virginity for Cligés, and the later one concerning a
potion which causes her apparent death and permits her to be united with
the one she loves. In both cases, the episodes involve the effect of a potion,
but more to the point, both the potions serve to conceal a situation from the
emperor and his people, thereby continuing the theme established from the
beginning of the romance.
Only after the convenient death of Alis can Cligés and Fénice express their
love openly. Significantly, Fénice’s concern throughout has not been for her
virtue or for Christian concepts of morality; she wants to protect not her
virginity but her reputation, and she even distorts the advice of St. Paul to
justify her conviction:
“Ja avuec vos einsi n’irai,
Que lors seroit par tot le monde
Aussi come d’Yseut la blonde
Et de Tristan de nos parlé,
Quant nos an seriiens alé;
Et ci et la. totes et tuit
Blasmeroient nostre deduit.
Nus nel crerroit ne devroit croire
La chose si com ele est voire.
De vostre onele qui crerroit dons,
Que li fusse si an pardons
Pucele estorse et eschapee?
Form and Pat tern in Cligés
313
Por trop baude et por estapee
Me tandroit l’an et vos por fol.
Mes le comandemant saint Pol
Fet buen garder et retenir.
Qui chastes ne se viaut tenir,
Sainz Pos a feire li ansaingne
Si sagemant, que il n’an praingne
N e cri ne blasme ne reproche. (vss. 5310-29)
The concern for reputation is thematieally effeetive, for if their actions were
morally or religiously motivated, they could no more admit their love to
themselves and each other than they could flaunt it before others. As it is,
they can accept it, but others must not know, and this contrast provides
the basis for the author’s play on concealment and revelation. The secretiveness practiced by Alexandre and Soredamors is forced upon Cligés and
Fénice, and they not only hide their love from others, but they also conceal
her chastity from Alis. And the essential and final irony of the work is the
faet that they are forced to conceal Fénice’s very existence from others, by
having her feign death and then hide in a secret tower in order to enjoy the
love they recognize and welcome so readily.
A discussion of the form of Cligés must obviously make a distinction be­
tween a physical (external) structure and a thematic (internal) structure. In
its external form, Cligés is as loosely constructed as possible, its only unifying narrative element being the son’s following the father’s example in
leaving Greece to seek renown and glory at Arthurs court. On the other
hand, Chrétien has succeeded in unifying the work by introducing narrative
patterns which reflect the opposition of concealment and revelation - the
reactions, respectively, of Alexandre and Cligés to love.
It is apparent that the pattern I have discussed can recur in contexts
having only an incidental thematic significance in the work. This pattern is
established in the principal episodes (where it does have a direct and
obvious thematic importance) and reflected in a variety of forms in other
parts of the romance, where its significance is basically structural: it relates
peripheral episodes to the central ones, and details to the whole, to organize
a complex and disparate narrative into a unified poem.