ABSTRACT
Originally, Gauvain is an exemplary knight, the unsurpassed embodiment of such virtues as courage, courtesy, wisdom, and loyalty. However, his frivolous ways make him the butt of irony of poets like Chrétien de Troyes. From allusions by troubadours, the oldest of which dates from before 1150, it can be deduced that they must have known the ambivalent figure of Gauvain from Northern France. Studies by Fanni Bogdanow, Jean Larmat, and particularly Keith Busby have shown that Gauvain as a literary character was subject to a negative development in Arthurian romances that ran parallel to the erosion of the ideal of the chevalerie terrienne. 1 According to Emmanuèle Baumgartner, this “champion de la répétition à l‘identique,” who traditionally seems to be in search of knightly adventure, is more than anything else a victim of the tendency to reread/rewrite the Arthurian pre-text in the prose romances with their pronounced tendency toward allegorization.2 Despite his noble characteristics, Gauvain is devalued in the Queste del Saint Graal as he is unable to repent his sinful life. As a consequence, he is excluded from the elite of the chevalerie célestielle, which is granted a glimpse of the Grail. In La Mort le roi Artu, he is obsessed by a thirst for revenge; this is elaborated further in the Tristan en prose, where Gauvain’s cruelty reaches unprecedented heights.3 In this essay, I want to survey the way in which King Arthur’s famous nephew has been portrayed in Italy, to see whether he is degraded there too or treated more leniently.
