The backstory and setting for Tristan und Isolde

This is my attempt at making sense of what Wagner tells us about the backstory of Tristan und Isolde, filling in with the historical set up, and the and quasi-historical characters from the 6th century, when the story is set.

Wagner does not specify the era, and I'd agree it's not terribly important, but I did find it illuminating in getting at the mythic underpinnings of the story.

Gottfried von Strassburg added the anarchronism of chivalry - along with his 13th century ideas of Christianity and fuedalism. Wagner had very little use for any of that. Much of act one is Isolde and Tristan playing the courtly game until the love potion strips that - and everything else - away. That is, Wagner's is not a pro-chivalry work, so I don't think we need a setting later in time.

Wagner did give us places even if they're not specific; the Irish Sea between Ireland and Cornwall. The garden of a castle in Cornwall. The disintegrating castle of Tristan's childhood in Brittany. The associations we gather are strong. Ireland is conservative life and health, Cornwall is unrestrained yearning and mortality, Brittany is oblivion and death. Three places all speaking languages derived from Insular Celtic (Primitive Irish, and the Common Brittonic dialects of Old Cornish and Old Breton).

Early 5th century saw the withdrawal of the Romans and filling in by the Saxons. Irish from the Kingdom of Munster continued to migrate to Wales and started moving to Cornwall as well. The Cornish also had increased migration to Brittany. The Christianizing of the Celts was also going on at this time. There were some pagan kings, but some converts as well. The syncretic Insular Christianity they practiced/developed would be rather foreign to our modern times.

This also suggests that the tribute the Cornish were paying the Irish was closer to the American Colonies paying Great Britain than the aftermath of a great war or such.

Tristan was born in Brittany, his father dying before he was born and his mother dying just after. He escapes Brittany to find adventure worthy of him. He wants to fight, not manage peasants and flocks.

His castle at Kareol falls into disrepair, though the peasants take care of the flocks. They know what's valuable (and it's not having a lord over them).

Tristan finds war in Cornwall, though not satisfaction. He helps Marke, against Saxon invasions and positioning against other petty kings. They both do well. Marke's wife (who is the one related to Tristan by blood) dies.

Marke does not want to remarry and starts to make excuses. I will not take a new wife while we are still in debt to the Irish. In a move we'll see from King Heinrich 400 years later, he has Tristan fight and kill Morold when the Irish knight comes to collect. His head is sent back; his body left on Samson Isle.

Tristan is wounded in the fight. He literally goes adrift, rather than just metaphorically. Princess Isolde finds him near death; he gives his name as Tantris and she and Brangäne tend to him.

I expect Tristan does not even know why Isolde turns against him; he does not know who she is nor of her connection to Morold. They are both deeply in love as she drops his sword. But propriety keeps them from acknowledging it. They still know there's a distance between them that they are not allowed to bridge.

She makes him promise to never return. He likely tries, but after returning to Cornwall the healthy Tristan goes to the official swearing of the peace with the Irish and she is there, as the daughter of the King of Munster. She should have expected that he would be there, but she goes anyway and remains silent. He had no reason to expect to see her, and his resolve weakens.

That business being done, the people of Cornwall once again call for Marke to take a new wife. Marke, who really loved his wife despite them not having any offspring, is not interested and wants Tristan to succeed him. This does not interest Tristan to the point that he threatens to return to Kareol. Marke, exasperated, asks for the perfect bride, and Tristan can only think of Isolde. He cannot escape who he is, though it actively hurts him.

As he goes to Cork and collects Princess Isolde he realizes that this is no solution for him; he will have to retire to Kareol anyway. And so he takes being offered the death potion as a lateral move.

But that's getting ahead of the story, as the opera begins on the boat back to Cornwall, most of the journey behind them.