Des portraits qui ont du style : Artus de Bretagne, un roman et sa continuation dans le manuscrit Paris, BnF fr. 761

Abstract

Artus de Bretagne is a French Arthurian prose romance: its hero, Arthur, son of the Duke of Brittany, is a descendant of Lancelot and the text reuses many Arthurian motifs. This romance was probably composed around 1300. The oldest preserved version is found in the manuscript Paris BnF 761. Having edited Artus de Bretagne and studied all the manuscripts, I hypothesised that this version consisted of an initial, unfinished version followed by a continuation. In this article, the stylistic method, adapted to the medieval text, makes it possible to confirm this hypothesis. Portraits are very different in the two parts. As this Arthurian romance adopts an original oriental setting, with a Greek toponymy, and as the supposed patron is Duke John II of Brittany, who is known to have travelled to the Byzantine area following the crusade led by his brother-in-law Edward I, King of England, the study of the portraits invites us to put forward (with caution) the hypothesis of an influence of the Byzantine romances, as a fairy, a princess and an automaton have the same appearance.