ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the space of the romance in terms of structures, its organization into opposing areas in Perlesvaus is somewhat original, not to say problematic. With the traditional division of space in Arthurian romance, King Arthur's castle should be the opposite of the forest, a civilized space contrasting with the wilderness. The detail of the window inscribes the worldly space of the castle within the continuity of the pagan space of the forest, disrupting the traditional structure of Arthurian romance. Nevertheless it reactivates the image Bernard of Clairvaux was that of windows of the senses which allow the filth of sin to enter the memory; this establishes the space of the forest as a house of memory. The originality of Perlesvaus is that it erases the boundary between the Eucharistic space of the chapel and the space inhabited by Arthur, in the same way as it erases the boundary between dream and reality in the Cahus episode.
