His portraits of feminine beauty, though they follow the typical patterns of description, nevertheless provide variety in their details. Chrétien even had the rare audacity to make one of his heroines (Lunete in The Knight with the Lion), a brunette rather than a blonde! Even more striking in their variety, however, are the portraits of ugliness: the physical ugliness of the wretched maiden with her torn dress and the grotesque damsel on her tawny mule in The Story of the Grail, the churlish herdsman in The Knight with the Lion, or the psychological ugliness of Meleagant.

Chrétien also excels in his descriptions of nature – of the plains, valleys, hills, rivers and forests of twelfth-century France and England. Natural occurrences such as the storm in Brocéliande forest early in The Knight with the Lion, followed by the sunshine and singing of birds, or the frightening dark night of rain the maiden later rides through in search of Yvain, are vividly evoked in octosyllabic verses of pure lyric quality. Castles, such as that of Perceval’s tutor Gornemant of Gohort, perched on their rocky promontories above raging rivers, with turrets, keeps and drawbridges, are all in the latest style of cut-stone construction. Gawain’s Hall of Marvels in The Story of the Grail has ebony and ivory doors with carved panels, while the one into which Yvain pursues the fleeing Esclados the Red is outfitted with a mechanized portcullis. In Erec in particular Chrétien treats with consummate skill the activities, intrigues, passions, and colour of contemporary court life. This romance is filled with lavish depictions of garments, saddles and trappings, and ceremonies that give proof of his keen attention to detail and his pleasure in description. Justly famous is the elaborate description of Erec’s coronation robe (ll. 6698–763), on which four fairies had skilfully embroidered portrayals of the four disciplines of the quadrivium: Geometry, Arithmetic, Music and Astronomy. His depiction of the great hall and Grail procession in The Story of the Grail is filled with specific details, which are richly suggestive and create an aura of mystery and wonder. In his descriptions, as in much of what he writes, Chrétien tantalizes us with details that are precise yet mysterious in their juxtapositions. He refuses to explain, and in that refusal lies much of his interest for us today. His artistry is one of creating a tone of wonder and mystification. What is Erec’s motivation? Why does Enide set off on the quest in her best dress? Did Lancelot consummate his love with Guinevere? What is the significance of Yvain’s lion? What is the mystery of the Grail Castle? In his prologue to Erec and Enide, Chrétien hints at a greater purpose behind his story than simple entertainment, but he deliberately refuses to spell out that purpose. And near the end of the romance, as Erec is about to recount his own tale for King Arthur, Chrétien significantly refuses to repeat it, telling us in words that apply equally well to all his romances:

Mes cuidiez vos que je vos die
quex acoisons le fist movoir?
Naie, que bien savez le voir
et de ice et d’autre chose,
si con ge la vos ai esclose. [ll. 6432–36]

[But do you expect me to tell you the reason that made him set out? No indeed, for you well know the truth of this and of other things, just as I have disclosed it to you.]

All the answers we may require, Chrétien assures us, are already embedded within the bele conjointure he has just opened out before us with such consummate artistry. In considering these details one must resist the temptation to seek an allegorical or symbolic interpretation for each one. Borrowing constantly from a reserve of symbols, Chrétien, like his contemporary listener or reader, would have been aware of the symbolic potential of certain terms, or certain numbers, animals or gems. But these symbols are handled delicately and naturally, with no continuous system. Chrétien was not writing a sustained allegory, such as the Romance of the Rose or the Divine Comedy. Contrary to pure allegory, his symbolic mode is discontinuous and polyvalent: it does not function in a single predictable manner in each instance, and one interpretation does not necessarily preclude another. Rosemond Tuve (1966) says, writing of such works: ‘Though a horse may betoken undisciplined impulses in one context, a knight parted from a horse in the next episode may just be a knight parted from a horse’. The symbol may change meaning freely and associatively, or include several meanings in a single occurrence, or even disappear altogether. Where allegory was an organized science in the Middle Ages, symbolism was an art in which poetic sensitivity, imagination and invention played a significant part.

Among Chrétien’s greatest achievements must be counted his mastery of the octosyllabic rhymed couplet. Although our translations are into prose, our usual medium today for a lengthy narrative, Chrétien naturally employed the medium of his own day, which had been consecrated before him by use in the rhymed chronicles and the romances of antiquity from which, as we have seen, he drew so much of his inspiration. The relatively short octosyllabic line with its frequent rhyme could become monotonous in untalented hands, but Chrétien manipulated it with great freedom and sensitivity: he varies his rhythms; adapts his rhymes and couplets to the flow of the narrative, rather than forcing his syntax to adhere to a rigidly repeating pattern; uses repetitions and wordplay, anaphora and enjambments; combines sounds harmoniously through the interplay of complementary vowels and consonants; and he uses expressive rhetorical figures to highlight significant words. He was fond of rhyming together two words which in Old French had identical spellings but wholly different meanings, and was likewise fond of playing upon several forms of the same or homonymous words, as in the following passage from Erec:

Au matinet sont esvellié
si resont tuit aparellié
de monter et de chevauchier.
Erec ot molt son cheval chier,
que d’autre chevalchier n’ot cure. [ll. 5125–29]

[They awoke at daybreak and all prepared again to mount and ride.