S ir O rfeo

Abstract

The fourteenth‐century “Breton lay” Sir Orfeo transposes the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to medieval England. With no immediate source for the poem identifiable, it is perhaps best thought of as a collation of multiple textual traditions, thematic influences, and literary motifs. Classical, Christian, Celtic, and vernacular romance materials all contribute to its central narrative of loss, exile, and return. The “ympe‐tre” [grafted tree] and the fairy underworld, replete with both dazzling and unsettling details, provide two of the most memorable images in the corpus of literature of medieval Britain. Further, and as in a number of Breton lays, the poem self‐consciously situates itself at the porous boundary between orality and literacy, bracketing its narrative with a reflection on how such works are variously “wrouȝt, /… yfounde and forþ ybrouȝt / … made” (ll. 13–16).