Amadís de Gaula

Amadís de Gaula (in English Amadis of Gaul) (Amadís de Gaula, amaˈðiz ðe ˈɣawla) (Amadis de Gaula, ɐmɐˈdiʒ ðɨ ˈɣawlɐ) is an Iberian landmark work among the Portuguese and Spanish chivalric romances which were in vogue in the 16th century, although its first version, much revised before printing, was written at the onset of the 14th century in an uncertain place of the Iberian Peninsula. The earliest surviving edition of the known text, by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo (not Ordóñez de Montalvo), was printed in Zaragoza, Spain, in 1508, although almost certainly there were earlier printed editions, now lost. It was published in four books in Castilian, but its origins are unclear: The narrative originates in the late post-Arthurian genre and had certainly been read as early as the 14th century by the chancellor Pero López de Ayala, as well as his contemporary Pero Ferrús. Montalvo himself confesses to have amended the first three volumes, and to be the author of the fourth. Additionally, in the Portuguese Chronicle by Gomes Eanes de Zurara (1454), Amadis is attributed to Vasco de Lobeira, who was knighted after the Battle of Aljubarrota (1385). Other sources claim that the work was, in fact, a copy of João de Lobeira, and that it was a translation into Castilian Spanish of an earlier work, probably from the beginning of the 14th century, however, no primitive version in Portuguese is known. A more recent sources attribute Amadis to Henry of Castile, due to evidence linking his biography with the events in Amadis. The inspiration for the "Amadis de Gaula" appears to be the forbidden marriage of Infanta Constanza of Aragon with Henry in 1260 (see Don Juan Manuel's Libro de las tres razones of 1335), as forbidden as was also Oriana's marriage to Amadis. In the introduction to the text, Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo explains that he edited the first three books of a text in circulation since the 14th century.

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Related concepts (4)

Amadís de Gaula

Novel

A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The English word to describe such a work derives from the novella for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of novellus, diminutive of novus, meaning "new". According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian Renaissance novella.

Chivalric romance

As a literary genre, the chivalric romance is a type of prose and verse narrative that was popular in the noble courts of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a chivalric knight-errant portrayed as having heroic qualities, who goes on a quest. It developed further from the epics as time went on; in particular, "the emphasis on love and courtly manners distinguishes it from the chanson de geste and other kinds of epic, in which masculine military heroism predominates.