Robert Boron, Estoire de Merlin [The Story of Merlin]

Carina Becker (Heinrich Heine Universität)

Ed. by Matthew Siôn Lampitt, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.01: French Writing and Culture: Old French to the Middle Ages , 500-1400.
Vol. editors: Marianne Ailes (University of Bristol), Matthew Siôn Lampitt (University of Bristol), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1235 - c.

Places

France (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Romance

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

The anonymous Old French

Estoire de Merlin

[

The Story of Merlin

] is the first extant narrative with Merlin as we know him today at its centre. The

Estoire

casts Merlin as Arthur’s magically and prophetically gifted advisor – a role with which he has been associated ever since, and on which most modern adaptations are based.

The Estoire is one of the earliest Arthurian romances in prose and survives, with a number of variant versions, in 55 manuscripts. The text was composed in several stages. It consists of an adaptation of Robert de Boron’s Merlin, a verse text of which only a fragment of 504 lines survives, and of a continuation, which was added to it about a decade afterwards. Boron composed his Merlin in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century (for a summary of opinions on

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2640 words

Citation: Becker, Carina. "Estoire de Merlin". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 February 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=41042, accessed 24 April 2024.]

Save this article