Essay Questions

How do Tristan and Isolde meet?

Tristan engages in a battle with Morold, Isolde’s uncle, and he defeats him but is injure din the process. As such, he goes under disguise as a man called Tantris, to Ireland to seek a cure. When he is there, he wins Isolde’s favor when he kills a dragon terrorizing the country men. However, she recognizes that the splinter in Morold’s skull matched that on Tristan’s sword. She threatens to kill him but is stopped by her mother. Ireland and Cornwall come to a truce and she agrees to be Marke’s wife. She and Tristan travel to Cornwall but fall in love in the process, with help from the love potion.

How is the text different to Thomas's poem?

Unlike the original poem, Gottfried did not have a chance to finish off the text and so it was left open ended. It ended with Tristan fleeing to Normandy when Marke finds out his relationship with Isolde. He then meets another Isolde of the White Hands, daughter of the Duke of Arundel. It is implied he is confused over which Isolde he wants to be with and this is where the text ends. In Thomas’s poem, Tristan is irreversible wounded and sends for Isolde the Fair. He sends a ship for her but it bears a black sail meaning that she is not on board, due to the manipulations of Isolde of the White Hands. He dies from grief just as she arrives and when she sees him she gives him a kiss, and she too dies.