Deformity and Uglyness in Romances of Chrétien de Troyes

The concepts of beauty and uglyness occupy an important place in the religious art and iconography of the Middle Ages. They are indeed the visual expression of the opposition between Good and Evil. Thus all representations of evil are characterized by a rupture of sacred symbolism and by its opposition to the Divine model. The 12th century novelist Chrétien de Troyes is clearly influenced by this worldview where everything is in correspondence with each other. In his various novels he evokes ugly or deformed characters who incarnate evil: ugly lady, keeper of the “essarts” or dwarfs. Nonetheless uglyness is not always unilaterally the expression of evil. It may also refer to a moresubtle idea. Thus, from a different perspective, the ugly can be considered as more beautiful than any expression of beauty, in as much as the ugly rather than the beautiful proves that the visible forms are only a distant reflection of the perfect beauty and not the real Beauty. Chrétien de Troyes thus relativizes the concept of beauty.