Chrétien de Troyes

Chrétien de Troyes was a French poet active between about 1160 and 1190, probably at the court of Marie de Champagne and later that of Philip of Flanders. Almost nothing is known of his life beyond what his poems say. His five Arthurian romances in rhymed couplets, Erec and Enide, Cligès, Yvain, Lancelot and the unfinished Perceval, are the earliest surviving works of their kind and introduced the Grail and the love of Lancelot and Guinevere to literature. He also wrote lyric poems and adaptations of Ovid. His combination of adventure, courtly love and psychological analysis shaped the romance for centuries.