The twelfth-century French poet Chrétien de Troyes is a major figure in European literature. His courtly romances fathered the Arthurian tradition and influenced countless other poets in England as well as on the continent. Yet because of the difficulty of capturing his swift-moving style in translation, English-speaking audiences are largely unfamiliar with the pleasures of reading his poems. Now, for the first time, an experienced translator of medieval verse who is himself a poet provides a translation of Chrétien’s major poem, Yvain, in verse that fully and satisfyingly captures the movement, the sense, and the spirit of the Old French original. Yvain is a courtly romance with a moral tenor; it is ironic and sometimes bawdy; the poetry is crisp and vivid. In addition, the psychological and the socio-historical perceptions of the poem are of profound literary and historical importance, for it evokes the emotions and the values of a flourishing, vibrant medieval past.

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A competitive national economy depends, in part, on a workforce development system that provides individuals with labor market skills and gives employers access to qualified workers. In the past, the nation s job training system was fragmented, containing overlapping programs that did not serve job seekers or employers well. 1 To address these problems, the Congress passed the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) in 1998, seeking to create a system connecting employment, education, and training services to better match workers to labor market needs. WIA s requirements represented a significant change from prior workforce development efforts, including, among other things.

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