A Survey of French Literature. Volume I: The Middle Ages to 1800

1966 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 129
Author(s):  
Claude K. Abraham ◽  
Morris Bishop
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
French Literature ◽  
The Middle Ages

The Middle Ages in French Literature 1851-1900

1977 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 447
Author(s):  
Garnet Rees ◽  
Janine R. Dakyns
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
French Literature ◽  
The Middle Ages

scholarly journals THE LION IN MEDIEVAL WESTERN EUROPE: TOWARD AN INTERPRETIVE HISTORY

Traditio ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 76 ◽  
pp. 185-213
Author(s):  
NIGEL HARRIS
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
French Literature ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Creative Tension ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western European ◽  
The Devil ◽  
The Middle Ages

Several scholars have studied meanings attributed to the lion in the western European Middle Ages, but their accounts have tended to be partial and fragmentary. A balanced, coherent interpretive history of the medieval lion has yet to be written. This article seeks to promote and initiate the process of composing such a history by briefly reviewing previous research, by proposing a thematic and chronological framework on which work on the lion might reliably be based, and by itself discussing numerous textual examples, not least from German, Latin, and French literature. The five categories of lion symbolism covered are, respectively, the threatening lion, the Christian lion, the noble lion, the sinful lion, and the clement lion. These meanings are shown successively to have constituted regnant fashions that at various times profoundly shaped people's understanding of the lion; but it is demonstrated also that they existed alongside, and in a state of creative tension with, a “ground bass” of lion meanings that changed relatively little. Lions nearly always, for example, represented important, imposing things and people (for example, kings); and the New Testament's polarized presentation of the lion as either Christ or the devil proved enormously influential both throughout and beyond the Middle Ages. As such any cultural history of the lion — and indeed of many other natural phenomena — must be continually sensitive to the co-existence and interaction of tradition and innovation, stability and dynamism.

Pierres précieuses – signe contesté de l’Orient dans le Roman d’Eracle de Gautier d’Arras (XIIe siècle)

2021 ◽  
pp. 57-68
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Dybeł
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
French Literature ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Precious Stones ◽  
The Middle Ages

The article analyses the motifs of precious stones present in the 12th century work of Gautier d’Arras, The Eracle Romance (ca. 1176-1184), often called “Byzantine romance”. This motif shows the influence of the Byzantine aesthetics on the French literature of the Middle Ages. Gautier d’Arras assimilates it, but at the same time modifies its sense. He re-defines the courtly ethos and diminishes the aesthetic character of the motif, typical of the oriental poetics. Precious stones are the contested sign of the East because their beauty is understood as the determinant of Virtue rather than outer beauty. This is a new face of the exotic – not only tamed but also moralised. This modification of the generally accepted hierarchy of values enriches the sapiential, moral and formative aspects of the work.

Jews Reading Arthurian Romances from the Middle Ages: On the Reception of Chrétien de Troyes'sYvain, the Knight of the Lion, based on Manuscript JTS Rab. 1164

AJS Review ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 381-401
Author(s):  
Rella Kushelevsky
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
French Literature ◽  
Chretien De Troyes ◽  
Arthurian Romance ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Jewish Society ◽  
Arthurian Romances ◽  
Christian Society ◽  
The Middle Ages ◽  
Cultural Interactions

Evidence of Jewish readerships for French literature in the Middle Ages, particularly romances, has been accumulating. This article focuses on a recently discovered tale from Italy, copied in Hebrew in MS JTS Rab. 1164, as a prism through which to explore the cultural interactions between Jewish and Christian society in Italy of the early Renaissance. I first analyze the Jewish tale, which I posit has an affinity with the Arthurian romanceYvain, The Knight of the Lionby Chrétien de Troyes, and expound on the thematic and poetic links between the two stories. I then examineYvain’s reception in Italy as part of a broader phenomenon involving the acceptance, copying, adaptation, and assimilation of French romances in Italy into vernacular Italian. Finally, I present the story and the factors that played a role in its reception in the context of Italian Jewish society. The entirety of the review offers an overall portrait of the story's reception as a unique socioliterary phenomenon shared by Jews and non-Jews alike in Italy in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance.

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