Tristan The Lover

The minstrels’ story of Tristan and Isolt was written down in French and German in the 11th century. It was later incorporated, with many other stories, into ‘The Arthurian legend’ – the adventures of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table. Mallory’s ‘Morte d’Arthur’ was one of the first books in English which was printed instead of copied by hand. Mallory’s book both popularised the Arthurian legend and buried the 11th century manuscripts of the Tristan tale. TRISTAN the LOVER” retells the 11th century version.

"Daniel Randolph Deal is a Southern aristocrat, having the required bloodline, but little of the nobility. A man resistant to the folly of ethics, he prefers a selective, self-indulgent morality. He is a confessed hedonist, albeit responsibly so."--Back cover

Rosemary Sutcliff's starkly simple retelling of the uniquely tragic and romantic story of the warrior Tristan and his love for the fair Iseult of Ireland, his uncle's chosen bride.

A tale of forbidden love and inevitable death, the medieval legend of Tristan and Isolde recounts the story of two lovers unknowingly drinking a magic potion and ultimately dying in one another's arms. While critics have lauded Wagner's Tristan and Isolde for the originality and subtlety of the music, they have denounced the drama as a "mere trifle"--a rendering of Wagner's forbidden love for Matilde Wesendonck, the wife of a banker who supported him during his exile in Switzerland. Death-Devoted Heart explodes this established interpretation, proving the drama to be more than just a sublimation of the composer's love for Wesendonck or a wistful romantic dream. Scruton boldly attests that Tristan and Isolde has profound religious meaning and remains as relevant today as it was to Wagner's contemporaries. He also offers keen insight into the nature of erotic love, the sacred qualities of human passion, and the peculiar place of the erotic in our culture. His argument touches on the nature of tragedy, the significance of ritual sacrifice, and the meaning of redemption, providing a fresh interpretation of Wagner's masterpiece. Roger Scruton has written an original and provocative account of Wagner's music drama, which blends philosophy, criticism, and musicology in order to show the work's importance in the twenty-first century.

Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Iseult) remains one of the most popular medieval romances ever written. The tales originated in Germany, but bards in France and Britain composed their own versions of the story, a tale of adultery, betrayal, mistaken identity, and thwarted love. Eisner’s The Tristan Legend offers a study of the sources of the Tristan romance, tracing them through the various versions of the legend