Professor Stephanie Cain Van D’Elden tells the story of Tristan and Isolde through illustrations Thursday night as part of the Gilbert Lecture series. (Spencer J Eggers/The Daily Campus)

Literature lovers and romantics alike came out Thursday night to see Professor Stephanie Cain Van D’Elden tell the story of the lovers Tristan and Isolde through illustrations.

Cain Van D’Elden, who currently teaches at the University of Minnesota, specializes in the story of Tristan and Isolde and just finished writing a book that will be available next year.

Although she has lived in Minnesota for the majority of her life, she tells people she is a Lone Star native.

“We have to remain loyal Texans,” Cain Van D’Elden said.

Her presentation, which was part of the Gilbert Lecture series, looked at how a story that took place originally in England was popular throughout all of Europe.

“The story was originally published in German and French,” Cain Van D’Elden said.

The idea that the story could be so popular in various cultures, like Italian, English, French and Lithuanian, was very interesting to the audience, including Amanda Blakely, a graduate student at SMU.

“It was really fascinating how prevalent it was in various cultures,” Blakely said.

For those who don’t know the story of Tristan and Isolde, here is a basic version.

Tristan, a knight, wins Irish princess Isolde as his bride by killing a dragon.

The bride is for his uncle Mark who is the king of Cornwall in England.

Isolde’s mother makes a love potion for Isolde and Mark, but Isolde and Tristan accidently drink it and fall in love.

This leads to secret affairs and, ultimately, their deaths.

The original manuscript is from Munich in the 1100s.

It has 118 scenes or drawings in it.

These are drawings that are in a majority of the manuscripts and on various other things like walls or embroideries.

Cain Van D’Elden writes about these in her book.

Thus, to tell the story properly, she had to break down the story.

“In my book, I divided the story in 38 episodes,” Cain Van D’Elden said.

What makes these scenes different from just pictures of courtly couples or knights fighting are the distinct details used in the pictures.

For example, there is a specific scene where Tristan and Isolde are meeting, and King Mark is spying on them.

In all pictures depicting this scene, you can see King Mark in the tree and his reflection in the pool below the tree.

“You’ll probably see these pictures everywhere now, and you’ll think, ‘Hmm, is this Tristan and Isolde? No, there isn’t water there,'” Cain Van D’Elden joked.

After Cain Van D’Elden finished her presentation and opened the floor for questions, professor Bonnie Wheeler made a special request of the audience.

“No one is allowed to ask why certain people collect certain things,” Wheeler said, smiling.

One of the questions asked was “Why is this story popular?” Cain Van D’Elden had a simple answer.

“It’s a story about intrigue and adultery, and a lot of other bad things happened that I didn’t talk about,” Cain Van D’Elden said. “But people seem to just remember it’s a love story and nothing else.”