ABSTRACT
The iconographical body the chapter has examined groups two verbal traditions, one in verse, the other in prose, of the same mythic narrative. The author has examined ourselves the following complete texts: Paris, BN. The relation of the written to the pictorial element is reversed in those manuscripts in which the figural narrative is framed in historiated initials. In attempting to define the discourse of the figural narrative in the illustrated manuscripts of Tristan, one must consider not just what the images tell of the story. The ocular recapitulative technique is most readily evident in multiscenic historiated initials or multi-scenic arrangements in general, but it is not limited to them. The visual discourse progresses according to its own dynamics. In the illuminated manuscripts of Tristan, the heroes' saga is told through a relatively constant figural chain, in other words through a particular paradigmatic figural discourse which will definitely mark the ocularisation of the myth, and hence its reception.
