The specular encounter occurs frequently in medieval Arthurian romance, in both verse and prose. It is well suited to these narratives that emphasize the unknown, in myriad guises. Often, the disclosures concern aspects of identity, or of the past or the future; they typically resolve some major enigma of selfhood, always with dramatic consequences. While human informants abound, we also find ethereal voices, documents, inscriptions, and iconic representations. Despite this variability of circumstances and contexts, however, the basic schema persists.

We shall begin with the five Arthurian romances of Chrétien de Troyes, each of which accords the specular encounter special prominence at one crucial juncture. Chrétien's consistent recourse to the schema has important implications for the significance of his oeuvre as a whole. His prominent use of the specular encounter exercised a seminal influence on his successors. Although we obviously cannot examine all of its occurrences in this vast body of literature, we shall examine in detail its fortunes in Le Bel Inconnu of Renaut de Beaujeu and the cyclical Prose Lancelot, with occasional reference to other representative works from the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, a period that witnessed the vigorous development and maturation of the medieval French Arthurian tradition.

CHRETIEN DE TROYES: SPECULARITY AND CRISIS

In Chrétien's romances as in Marie's Lais, the specular encounter is consistently the centerpiece of each narrative. Unlike Marie, however, Chrétien consistently makes it the pivotal segment in a fiction of individuation.