Donald Maddox

Sara Sturm-Maddox

Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe is a series which opens up a dedicated forum for comparative work on northern European medieval literature, history and society and their significance in the modern world, It promotes dialogue between anglophone and continental medievalists, and addresses the need for transcultural perspectives on Europe's medieval origins in a way that is distinctive both in scope and academic orientation. The focus is on the medieval texts and cultures of the British Isles, northern and central mainland Europe, and Scandinavia. The chronological range of the series is from c. 800 AD to c. 1600 AD. Each volume makes available to an international readership excellent new work, offering ways of reading rexts, cultures and institutions that speak to the contemporary world.

The Miracles de Nostre Dame Par Personnages

Parisian Confraternity Drama of the Fourteenth Century

Overall, the collection offers a provocative rethinking of the monumental medieval French tradition of Alexander the Great, as well as valuable insight into the emergence and transformations of French literature between the early twelfth century and the end of the Middle Ages."--BOOK JACKET.

The Medieval French Alexander

Jean d'Arras

"An annotated English translation of the fourteenth-century French prose romance Melusine, by Jean d'Arras"--Provided by publisher.

Or, The Noble History of Lusignan

Melusine

Petrarch's Laurels

Virginia Scott

This collaborative, interdisciplinary study explores a variety of issues in theatrical and literary history that converge in two performances given at the palace of Fontainebleau on 13 February 1564. Part of the fabled Fêtes de Fontainebleau, this carnival Sunday entertainment was produced at the behest of Catherine de Médicis and created by courtiers and artists including Pierre de Ronsard, the greatest lyric poet of the French sixteenth century. While focused on the text and production of Ronsard's Bergerie and the choice and production of the tale of Ginevra from Ariosto's Orlando furioso, the study also examines the urgent circumstances of the festival - the moment, shortly after the end of the First War of Religion, was critical and highly charged - as well as its political program and the rhetorical strategies employed by Catherine and Ronsard to promote harmony among the opposing factions of nobles. The authors' exploration of the Queen's Day also leads them to consider a range of questions pertaining to Renaissance and early modern court performance practices and literary-cultural traditions. The book is distinctive in that it crosses disciplinary and national boundaries, and in that a number of the issues it addresses have received little or no previous scholarly attention.

Catherine de Médicis and Pierre de Ronsard at Fontainebleau

Performance, Poetry and Politics on the Queen's Day

Explores the significance of Alexander the Great in French medieval literature and culture.

This volume of original essays is the first collection devoted to the monumental Roman de Melusine (1393) by Jean d'Arras. A masterwork of late fourteenth-century French prose fiction, Melusine tells of the powerful medieval dynasty of Lusignan from its founding as a city by the legendary Melusine, an enigmatic fairy-figure subject to periodic monstrous transformations, through its expansion in Europe and the Near East, to its ultimate evanescence. Melusine offers a singular blend of history and fiction as it upholds the proprietary claims to Lusignan of the work's illustrious patron, Jean, Duc de Berry. The great deeds of Melusine, her forebears, and her progeny unfold in a narrative that blends elements of myth, folklore, and popular traditions with epic, Crusade narrative, romance, and theological doctrine. Advancing a wealth of new material and fresh insight, the essays in this volume address the complex interplay of the conventions of medieval fictional, historical, and genealogical writing from a wide variety of critical perspectives. Together, they offer a new, more balanced and comprehensive understanding of one of the most significant literary works of late medieval European culture.

Sara Sturm-Maddox

About

Books

Join the club