The Continuations of the Old French "Perceval" of Chrétien de Troyes, Volume 2


Book Description

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.




The Romances of Chretien de Troyes


Book Description

Twelfth-century French poet Chrétien de Troyes was one of the most influential figures in Western literature, for his romantic poems on the legend of King Arthur gave rise to a tradition of storytelling that continues to this day. This important and fascinating book is a study of all of Chrétien’s work. Joseph J. Duggan begins with an introduction that sets Chrétien within the social and intellectual currents of his time. He then organizes the book in chapters that focus on major issues in Chrétien’s romances rather than on individual works, topics that range from the importance of kinship and genealogy to standards of secular moral responsibility and from Chrétien’s art of narration to his representation of knighthood. Duggan offers new perspectives on many of these themes: in a chapter on the influence of Celtic mythology, for example, he gives special attention to the ways Chrétien integrated portrayals of motivation with mythic themes and characters, and in discussing the Grail romance, he explores the parallels between Perceval’s and Gauvain’s adventures.




The Art of Medieval French Romance


Book Description

Douglas Kelly provides a comprehensive and historically valid analysis of the art of medieval French romance as the romancers themselves describe it. He focuses on well-known writers, such as Chrétien de Troyes and Marie de France, and also draws on a wide range of other sources—prose romances, non-Arthurian romances, thirteenth-century verse romances, and variant versions from the later Middle Ages. Kelly is the first scholar to present the “art” of medieval romance to a modern audience through the interventions and comments of medieval writers themselves. The book begins by examining the difficulties scholars perceive in medieval literature: problems such as source and intertextuality, structure in its manifold modern meanings, and character psychology and individuality. These issues frame Kelly’s identification and discussion of all the known authorial interventions on the art and craft of romance. Kelly’s careful reconstruction of the “art” of romance, based on the records left by the romancers themselves, will be an invaluable resource and guide for all medievalists.




Lai de L'Oiselet: an Old French Poem of the Thirteenth Century


Book Description

Provides a complete & accurate text of a poem, ¿Lai de l¿Oiselet¿, that has long been available only in outdated or partial editions. Brings up-to-date & gathers in one place as much info. as possible about the origins of the story & its many analogues. Contents: (I) Synopsis of the Story; (II) Manuscripts; (III) Editions of the Story; (IV) Sources & Analogues of the Story: The ¿Barlaam & Josaphat¿; The ¿Disciplina clericalis¿; The ¿Chastoiement,¿Trois Savoirs,¿ & ¿Donnei des Amants¿; Thematic Sources: The ¿locus amoenus¿; Generic & Stylistic Observations; (V) The Present Edition: The Choice of the Base Manuscript; Conclusions: Editorial Principles; Bibliography; Text of the Story; Rejected Readings of Ms ¿B¿; Diplomatic Texts; & Glossary. Illus.







The old French prose legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller


Book Description

Die Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie zählen zu den renommiertesten Fachpublikationen der Romanistik. Sie pflegen ein gesamtromanisches Profil, das neben den Nationalsprachen auch die weniger im Fokus stehenden romanischen Sprachen mit einschließt. In der Reihe erscheinen ausgewählte Monographien und Sammelbände zur Sprachwissenschaft in ihrer ganzen Breite, zur mediävistischen Literaturwissenschaft und zur Editionsphilologie.







The Danger of Romance


Book Description

The curious paradox of romance is that, throughout its history, this genre has been dismissed as trivial and unintellectual, yet people have never ceased to flock to it with enthusiasm and even fervor. In contemporary contexts, we devour popular romance and fantasy novels like The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones, reference them in conversations, and create online communities to expound, passionately and intelligently, upon their characters and worlds. But romance is “unrealistic,” critics say, doing readers a disservice by not accurately representing human experiences. It is considered by some to be a distraction from real literature, a distraction from real life, and little more. Yet is it possible that romance is expressing a truth—and a truth unrecognized by realist genres? The Arthurian literature of the Middle Ages, Karen Sullivan argues, consistently ventriloquizes in its pages the criticisms that were being made of romance at the time, and implicitly defends itself against those criticisms. The Danger of Romance shows that the conviction that ordinary reality is the only reality is itself an assumption, and one that can blind those who hold it to the extraordinary phenomena that exist around them. It demonstrates that that which is rare, ephemeral, and inexplicable is no less real than that which is commonplace, long-lasting, and easily accounted for. If romance continues to appeal to audiences today, whether in its Arthurian prototype or in its more recent incarnations, it is because it confirms the perception—or even the hope—of a beauty and truth in the world that realist genres deny.