Polyphony of Space in the Arthurian Novel

Abstract

In the medieval world indifferent to time, space is subject to qualitative polarisations and is organized in three aspects (topology, projective relations, similarity). Thus, the space in the arthurian novel can be examined in terms of its visual themes (objects, elements of the nature, concepts: center/periphery, outside/inside, upside/downside, frontier/interior, open/close), its profundity (voyage/real or imaginary progress, profane/sacred) and its ubiquity (spatial symbols). The image of the world that is retained in our mind, a whole of various kinds of fragmentation of space that human eyes harmonize, is poliphonic.