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Twenty-Four Lays from the French Middle Ages
Glyn S. Burgess
€ 190.84
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Description for Twenty-Four Lays from the French Middle Ages
Hardcover. The first complete collection of extant Medieval French Lays. Lays are short (typically 600-1000 lines), rhymed tales of love and chivalry. Series: Exeter Studies in Medieval Europe. Num Pages: 288 pages. BIC Classification: 2ADF; DSBB; DSC. Category: (U) Tertiary Education (US: College). Dimension: 164 x 300 x 26. Weight in Grams: 620.
This prose translation of twenty-four lays from the French Middle Ages brings to the general reader as well as to scholars a complement to the twelve well-known lays by Marie de France, the possible creator of the genre. These lays are mostly anonymous, and the majority, but by no means all of them, are, like Marie’s lays, centred on a love interest of some kind in a variety of settings. But, unlike Marie’s lays, their treatment varies from the courtly and sophisticated to the comic or the tragic, thereby illustrating the range of poems covered by the term lai in twelfth- and thirteenth-century France. A significant number of these lays, based in the courtly world, contain supernatural elements or magic objects that are fundamental to the story as it is related, and sometimes the heroes leave the real world to dwell forever in an otherworldly domain. Other lays have a more mundane feel to them and seem closer to the fabliau in tone. In one instance, the lay of Haveloc, the tale owes more to legendary history than to pure fantasy. Overall, this collection stakes a claim to make an important contribution to the Medieval French lay within the wider European tradition of the short story and the literature of love.
Product Details
Format
Hardback
Publication date
2016
Publisher
Liverpool University Press United Kingdom
Number of pages
288
Condition
New
Series
Exeter Studies in Medieval Europe
Number of Pages
288
Place of Publication
Liverpool, United Kingdom
ISBN
9781781383360
SKU
V9781781383360
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-50
About Glyn S. Burgess
Glyn S. Burgess is Emeritus Professor of French at the University of Liverpool. His Penguin Classics edition of The Lais of Marie de France has sold more than 150,000 copies. He is co-author of The Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte-Maure (with Douglas Kelly, D. S. Brewer, 2017). In 1999 he was made a Chevalier des Palmes Académiques and he is an Honorary President of the International Courtly Literature Society. Leslie Brook is Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham
Reviews for Twenty-Four Lays from the French Middle Ages
Reviews 'With this volume, and the projects which have preceded it, Burgess and Brook are to be congratulated for their work in ensuring greater prominence for these lays, and in widening resources for use in comparative and interdisciplinary scholarship.' Alison Williams, Modern Language Review 'This volume is suitable for use in the classroom as well as for enjoyment by the general reader.' The Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature '[Twenty-Four Lays from the French Middle Ages] will no doubt result in new perspectives for any English speaking researcher interested in medieval literature... We can only applaud the work done to give more visibility and accessibility to texts that actually deserve more attention, both from specialists than a wider audience.' Virgile Reiter, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale Translated from French, '[Twenty-Four Lays from the French Middle Ages] qui entraînera sans doute de nouvelles perspectives pour tout chercheur anglophone s’intéressant à la littérature médiévale... Nous ne pouvons effectivement qu’applaudir le travail fourni pour donner plus de visibilité et d’accessibilité à des textes qui méritent effectivement plus d’attention, aussi bien de la part des spécialistes que d’un public plus large.'