En busca de historias artúricas perdidas en tradiciones traducidas: En torno al tema de las manzanas en el relato galés de "Peredur"

Abstract

References, or echoes, of what appear to be lost narratives, can be found in some surviving medieval tales. The purpose of the present contribution is to offer some possibilities for the recovery of such lost episodes by means of intertextual connections with those narratives that have come down to us albeit in languages different from those of the purported lost ones. This article suggests that benefit can be derived from the travelling nature of medieval European literary tradition, wherein many stories, characters, and thematic narrative elements traveled (almost) all of medieval Europe through translations. Thus, while a particular lost episode might not be attested in the surviving sources in the same language, we might find echoes of it elsewhere, translated in other languages. Important for this theory is the aural nature of medieval culture: the fact that most medieval audiences would have experienced stories through performance. Thus, episodic nature of the surviving narratives is highly important as individual episodes could (and would) be performed, transmitted, and translated detached from their original story-environment. As a case-study illustrating the proposed method of narrative reconstruction reliant on the translational nature of medieval literature, this article uses the reference to a seemingly lost episode that occurs at the beginning of the Welsh tale Historia Peredur vab Efrawc «History of Peredur son of Efrawc». This episode seems to have involved a knight who distributed apples at king Arthur’s court. Later works, which are the result of the transmission and translation of Arthurian narratives in France and England will be key to reconstructing this lost episode.