Transforming Tales Rewriting Metamorphosis in Medieval French Literature

Transforming Tales examines the idea of bodily transformation in French literature composed between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries. Focusing on well-known stories (Narcissus and Echo; Pygmalion and his statue) and figures (Merlin, the werewolf), the book approaches a number of canonical texts in ways which will be accessible and helpful to students and scholars of medieval literature Not only does it explore the ways in which stories oftransformation enable an insight into medieval ideas about humanity, it also considers the way in which these stories have themselves be reworked and adapted, arguing that metamorphosis can be read as a metaphor forrewriting in the Middle Ages.