Robert the Devil: The First Modern English Translation of Robert le Diable, an Anonymous French Romance of the Thirteenth Century. Prepared by Samuel N. Rosenberg. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018, 157 pp., 1 frontispiece.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 477-478
Author(s):  
Albrecht Classen
Keyword(s):  
French Text ◽  
Middle English ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Old French ◽  
Poor Woman ◽  
State University ◽  
Pennsylvania State University ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The One ◽  
The Devil

Quite commonly, medieval poets deal with a royal couple that seems to be infertile, when suddenly the wife becomes pregnant after all. But where and when would the devil be the one who creates this miracle after the poor queen has appealed to him, having turned despondent over God’s unwillingness to listen to her prayers? Even in the Middle English Sir Gowther (late 15th century), the future mother does not know that the devil takes on the shape of her husband in order to sleep with her, while in the Old French text, Robert le Diable, the poor woman even prays to the devil to help her. It also seems rather unusual that the poet then describes the child as virtually possessed by the devil, demonstrating egregiously aggressive behavior toward everyone, until at one point the protagonist learns from his mother the truth about his origin and immediately tries to atone for his evil deeds and turns into a most curious fool, obeying God’s command that he no longer speak and act like an utter madman, taking food only from a dog’s mouth.

scholarly journals Crown Rot of Zucchini Squash Caused by Fusarium solani f. sp. cucurbitae in Almería Province, Spain

Plant Disease ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 92 (7) ◽  
pp. 1137-1137 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Gómez ◽  
J. M. Guerra-Sanz ◽  
M. C. Sánchez-Guerrero ◽  
Y. Serrano ◽  
J. M. Melero-Vara
Keyword(s):  
Fusarium Solani ◽  
Morphological Characteristics ◽  
Crown Rot ◽  
State University ◽  
Pennsylvania State University ◽  
Its1 Region ◽  
5.8S Rdna ◽  
Race 1 ◽  
Petri Plate ◽  
The One

Cucumber, melon, watermelon, and zucchini are intensively cropped in the southern part of Spain where approximately 20,000 ha of the crops are grown in greenhouses. In the spring of 2007, zucchini plants (Cucurbita pepo) at the fruit-bearing stage in three commercial plastichouses in Almería exhibited necrosis on the basal stem, wilt, and death. The incidence of dead plants was 20 to 30%. Fusarium solani was consistently isolated from the basal stems of symptomatic plants on potato dextrose agar (PDA). Cultures of six single-hyphal transfers were identified on the basis of molecular sequences and morphological characteristics (2). Sequences of ribosomal DNA from ITS1 region, 5.8S rDNA, and ITS2 were identical for all six isolates of F. solani. The rDNA sequence of isolate Fscl-3 of F. solani was deposited as GenBank Accession No. AM940070. The pathogenicity of these six isolates of F. solani was tested in two experiments conducted in one plastichouse in Almería. Pregerminated seeds of zucchini cv. Consul were sown in 1-liter containers filled with vermiculite on 21 May and 22 June, 2007 (experiments 1 and 2, respectively). Plants at the one- to two-true-leaf stage or younger were inoculated with a soil drench of 2.0 to 8.4 × 105 propagules per ml). One colonized PDA petri plate of each isolate was blended and homogenized in 500 ml of distilled water. Inoculum (50 ml per plant) was poured around the stem of zucchini plants growing in vermiculite. The experimental design was a randomized complete block with three replicates with each plot comprising four plants (one plant per container). In both experiments, 12 uninoculated plants of the same cultivar served as controls. Plants were maintained for 1 month following inoculation in a greenhouse with mean temperatures ranging between 20.7 and 24.6°C and 23.3 to 29.8°C for experiments 1 and 2, respectively. Wilting first occurred 9 days after inoculation, and 14 days later, all plants inoculated with the F. solani isolates died. Inoculated plants exhibited lesions on the stem base without rot of secondary roots. At the end of the experiment, the uninoculated plants remained asymptomatic. Results of experiment 2, with higher temperatures, were similar. The pathogen was consistently recovered from symptomatic plants in both experiments, fulfilling Koch's postulates. Although F. solani f. sp. cucurbitae race 1 was reported in field squash (C. maxima) in the province of Valencia of east-central Spain (1), to our knowledge, this is the first report of F. solani as the causal agent of crown rot of zucchini plants in plastichouses in the Almería Province of Spain, one of the world's largest concentrations of greenhouses. References: (1) J. García-Jiménez et al. Plant Dis. 81:1216, 1997. (2) C. M. Messiaen and R. Cassini. Taxonomy of Fusarium. Page 427 in: Fusarium: Diseases, Biology, and Taxonomy. P. E. Nelson et al., eds. Pennsylvania State University, University Park, 1981.

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