Chretien de Troyes two Arthurian tales Erec and Enide and The Knight with the Lion (Yvain) are two which perfectly highlight the conflict between love and chivalric duties as well as private and public life. In one, love is placed above chivalry, and in the other, chivalry is above love. In both cases, we see that there is often a secondary conflict of what should remain private and what is made public. Chretien uses these texts to show that these conflicts are not infrequent and ones that seem to plague Arthurian literature.
This conflict between love and chivalry in Erec and Enide first arises at the very beginning of the tale when Arthur “wanted to hunt the white stage in order to revive the tradition” (p. 37). Gawain astutely reminds
