Samuel N. Rosenberg

Margaret Switten

Gerard Le Vot

First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

An Anthology of Poems and Melodies

Songs of the Troubadours and Trouveres

Patricia Terry

The deeply resonant love story of Sir Lancelot and King Arthur's wife, Queen Guenevere, has had enduring appeal ever since it was invented in the 12th-century by the French writer Chrétien de Troyes. The protagonists became a model of ill-fated adulterers whose irresistible love led not only themselves but their entire world to perdition. The tale has been told and retold over the years in many languages and forms; the most provocative and elaborate version is in the immense suite of early-13th-century French narratives collectively called the Lancelot-Grail or Arthurian Vulgate Cycle. Related here is the whole wondrous, adventure-filled, mythic history of Arthur and his chivalric kingdom. The anonymous author of the massive section devoted to Lancelot expanded the triangle Arthur-Guenevere-Lancelot into a rectangle, adding a figure named Galehaut, Lord of the Distant Isles, a powerful political and military foe to Arthur and a rival to Guenevere for the love of Lancelot. It is an extraordinary tale, this overlapping love story, which is recounted with an understanding of human desires and aspirations unprecedented in its depth and richness. For love of Lancelot, Galehaut surrenders his political ambitions, voluntarily submitting to the rule of Arthur; the same love leads him to facilitate the rapprochement of Lancelot and the Queen. The invincible Lord of the Distant Isles, who had seemed destined to conquer the world, becomes a paragon of love-inspired self-sacrifice. Whether for political reasons or out of aversion to the homoerotic, later retellings of the Lancelot story, in whatever language, show little or no interest in Galehaut. This is especially true of Malory's great English treatment of the Arthurian legend in the 15th century, in which the "high prince" Galehaut appears but only peripherally and with no significant tie to Lancelot.

Or, The Book of Galehaut Retold

Lancelot and the Lord of the Distant Isles

Hans Tischler

The Roman de Fauvel describes the career of Fauvel, a horse-like figure whose overweening ambitions lead the writer to lament the evils of the world. He excites the attentions of the rich and powerful, presumes to court Lady Fortune, and provokes allÿkinds of outrage and grief. His very name is an anagram for Flaterie, Avarice, Vilanie, Varit (fickleness), Envie, and Lachet (cowardice). A long poetic narrative enlivened by polyphonic and monophonic songs, chants, and pictures, the Roman makes use of allegory and satire to express vehement moral criticism of the late medieval royal court and Church. This is the first modern, critical edition of the monophonic songs collected in the Roman de Fauvel in the early fourteenth century. Samuel N. Rosenberg and Hans Tischler set out to establish and interpret the lyrics and music of all the monophonic pieces, some seventy in all. Accompanying the full poetic and music texts are their English translations from the original Latin and French. This edition represents the kinds of close collaboration between philologist and musicologist that the Fauvel songs call fro but have never before received. Illustrating a wide variety of form and styles?including chivalric love songs, dance pieces, ballades, rondeaux, and nonsense compositions?The Monophonic Songs in the Roman de Fauvel is an extraordinary valuable anthology of music and a treasure trove of information about the period.

The Monophonic songs in the Roman de Fauvel

Elizabeth Aubrey

Eglal Doss-Quinby

The major compilation of Old French lyrics included in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 308 (Lorraine, ca. 1310) is the only trouvère chansonnier that groups its songs by genre, to the exclusion of other organizing criteria. Under the rubric "Ci en comancent les balletes," the manuscript presents 188 texts, most with a refrain though none with music, meant to accompany dancing. The ballettes are of the utmost interest for their place within the development of medieval lyric, especially for their relation to the formes fixes of the 14th century. Consisting mainly of unica, the collection represents a lyric tradition fostered in Lorraine, contemporaneous with the courtly compositions of the trouvères, yet unacknowledged by compilers of mainstream songbooks in northern France in the 13th century. Eglal Doss-Quinby, Samuel N. Rosenberg, and Elizabeth Aubrey offer a critical edition of the texts in Douce 308, facing English versions, the music surviving in other sources for 26 of the songs, and an extensive introduction.

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 308

The Old French Ballette

The Neuter Pronoun in Adjectival Predication

Modern French CE

"The story of the passionate, adulterous, tragic love of Lancelot and Guenevere is at once the perfect expression of "courtly love" and its inversion. Lancelot, the superhuman stranger in King Arthur's court, sacrifices everything in service of his king, and yet also falls secretly in love with Arthur's queen, the most beautiful woman in all of Britain. That this spotless knight, who repeatedly saves Arthur and his world from destruction, should also be the fateful underminer of the king's self-confidence and, ultimately, a terrible weapon in the hands of Arthur's great adversary Galehaut, is a contradiction that has fascinated the Western mind for hundreds of years." "The Arthurian legend that most of us know comes from Malory and The Once and Future King. But there are also several books of Old French romance, the most detailed of which, the thirteenth-century "Book of Galehaut," gives a surprising and unfamiliar version. It is a double love story - the tale not only of Lancelot's love for Guenevere, but also the love of Galehaut, the Lord of the Distant Isles, for Lancelot. It is the achievement of Patricia Terry and Samuel N. Rosenberg, both seasoned translators of medieval romance, to tease out from the French sources the essential story of Lancelot, Guenevere, Galehaut, and Arthur, and, without distorting the original, retell it for today's reader. Their rich, subtle, and deeply moving narrative is complemented by evocative wood engravings by Judith Jaidinger, the most distinctive visual interpreter of Arthurian legend since Arthur Rackham and Howard Pyle."--BOOK JACKET.

Samuel N. Rosenberg

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