Roberta L. Krueger, Burgess Professor of French, has published an essay titled "Chrétien de Troyes and the Invention of Arthurian Courtly Fiction" in The Companion to Arthurian Literature, edited by Helen Fulton (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). Her analysis of five Old French romances written between 1160 and 1190 – Erec and Enide, Cligès, Yvain, Lancelot, and Perceval – shows how Chrétien de Troyes's deft exposition of amorous and chivalric problems at court sets the stage for the vast expansion of Arthurian literature throughout the European Middle Ages.
