Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- The Current State of Research on Late-Medieval Drama: 2004–2005: Survey, Bibliography, and Reviews
- Intertextual Play and the Game of Love: The Belle Dame sans mercy Cycle
- Hans Sachs’s Tragedy of the Last Judgment (1558): Eschatological Theater in Germany
- La traducción en el siglo XV: herramientas de trabajo, procedimientos, técnicas y métodos
- Doctor Johann Weyer (1515–88) and Witchcraft
- Christ’s Healing of the Lame Man in the York Cycle’s Entry into Jerusalem: Interpretive Challenges for the Newly Healed
- The German Collection of Saints’ Legends Der Maget Krone (1473–75): Contents, Commentary, and Evaluation of Current Research
- Malebouche, Metaphors of Misreading, and the Querelle des femmes in Jean Molinet’s Roman de la Rose moralisé (1500)
- The Physiognomy and Mental Equipment of a Late-Medieval Hangman: A Chapter in Anthropological Histor
- Laughter and Manhood in the Petit Jehan de Saintré (1456)
- The Pentangle Hypothesis: A Dating History and Resetting of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- Bawcutt, Priscilla, ed. The Shorter Poems of Gavin Douglas, 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society, 2003. Pp. lxxxvii; 347 (Goldstein).
- Chapuis, Julien, ed. Tilman Riemenschneider, c.1460–1531. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Pp. 264, 9x11. 206 b/w ill.+ 26 color (DuBruck).
- Giráldez, Susan. “Las Sergas de Esplandián” y la España de los Reyes Católicos. New York: Peter Lang, 2003. Pp. 113 (Surtz).
- Huot, Sylvia. Madness in Medieval French Literature: Identities Found and Lost. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. 224 (Gerulaitis).
- Nicholas, Nick, and George Baloglou. An Entertaining Tale of Quadrupeds: Translation and Commentary. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. Pp. xiii; 557 (DuBruck).
- Raymo, Robert E., and Elaine E. Whitaker, eds. The Mirroure of the Worlde: A Middle English Translation of “Le Miroir du monde.” Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. Pp. x; 644 (Ruth).
- Thomas, Jacques T. E., ed. and tr. Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence, ”La Vie de Saint Thomas de Canterbury.” Louvain/Paris: Peeters, 2002. 2 vols. Pp. 352 and 422 (Szkilnik).
- Weidmann, Pia Holenstein, and Urs L. Gantenbein. Nova acta paracelsica: Beiträge zur Paracelsus-Forschung. Neue Folge 17. Bern: Peter Lang, 2003. Pp. 141 (DuBruck).
- Index to Articles in “Fifteenth-Century Studies,” Volumes 21–30
Intertextual Play and the Game of Love: The Belle Dame sans mercy Cycle
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- The Current State of Research on Late-Medieval Drama: 2004–2005: Survey, Bibliography, and Reviews
- Intertextual Play and the Game of Love: The Belle Dame sans mercy Cycle
- Hans Sachs’s Tragedy of the Last Judgment (1558): Eschatological Theater in Germany
- La traducción en el siglo XV: herramientas de trabajo, procedimientos, técnicas y métodos
- Doctor Johann Weyer (1515–88) and Witchcraft
- Christ’s Healing of the Lame Man in the York Cycle’s Entry into Jerusalem: Interpretive Challenges for the Newly Healed
- The German Collection of Saints’ Legends Der Maget Krone (1473–75): Contents, Commentary, and Evaluation of Current Research
- Malebouche, Metaphors of Misreading, and the Querelle des femmes in Jean Molinet’s Roman de la Rose moralisé (1500)
- The Physiognomy and Mental Equipment of a Late-Medieval Hangman: A Chapter in Anthropological Histor
- Laughter and Manhood in the Petit Jehan de Saintré (1456)
- The Pentangle Hypothesis: A Dating History and Resetting of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- Bawcutt, Priscilla, ed. The Shorter Poems of Gavin Douglas, 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society, 2003. Pp. lxxxvii; 347 (Goldstein).
- Chapuis, Julien, ed. Tilman Riemenschneider, c.1460–1531. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Pp. 264, 9x11. 206 b/w ill.+ 26 color (DuBruck).
- Giráldez, Susan. “Las Sergas de Esplandián” y la España de los Reyes Católicos. New York: Peter Lang, 2003. Pp. 113 (Surtz).
- Huot, Sylvia. Madness in Medieval French Literature: Identities Found and Lost. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. 224 (Gerulaitis).
- Nicholas, Nick, and George Baloglou. An Entertaining Tale of Quadrupeds: Translation and Commentary. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. Pp. xiii; 557 (DuBruck).
- Raymo, Robert E., and Elaine E. Whitaker, eds. The Mirroure of the Worlde: A Middle English Translation of “Le Miroir du monde.” Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. Pp. x; 644 (Ruth).
- Thomas, Jacques T. E., ed. and tr. Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence, ”La Vie de Saint Thomas de Canterbury.” Louvain/Paris: Peeters, 2002. 2 vols. Pp. 352 and 422 (Szkilnik).
- Weidmann, Pia Holenstein, and Urs L. Gantenbein. Nova acta paracelsica: Beiträge zur Paracelsus-Forschung. Neue Folge 17. Bern: Peter Lang, 2003. Pp. 141 (DuBruck).
- Index to Articles in “Fifteenth-Century Studies,” Volumes 21–30
Summary
In rereading Alain Chartier's La Belle Dame sans mercy (1424) and its epigonous cycle of poetic responses, I was left with questions about rather than answers to various problems. Chartier's work and the series of poems it engendered are rich, complex creations, with regard both to form and subject matter or, as I may phrase it, narratology and doctrine. Grounded in the social and literary conventions of the late Middle Ages, these texts offer a field of inquiry to the literary critic and the historian, yet anyone analyzing these areas must also be versed in the cultural development. Contemporary approaches provide insights into these works, perspectives unavailable to earlier generations of scholars, and this article is one example of how literary criticism and culture studies might focus together on texts from the past. Chartier's poem of one hundred octosyllabic stanzas in the form of a debate between allegorical figures and the text's sequels make up a corpus of occasionally problematic texts that warrant my case study. The poet's work and the cycle tell us about the late Middle Ages, the texts’ medievalness, their modernity, and, above all, problems of courtly love, even of love relationships in general.
Alain Chartier (1385–1430) wrote several works on contemporary history and politics in addition to his poetic oeuvre; his courtly poetry, imitated by fellow writers, constitutes the last phase of a long medieval tradition. La Belle Dame sans mercy, which opposes an amant martyr [martyred lover] to an indifferent woman, as manifested through a metaforensic debate, shows signs of the ultimate disintegration of the courtly love ethos in France. The issues raised by Chartier in this poem came to be discussed in a series of later texts by other writers; with La Belle Dame these responses comprise a cycle of theme-related poetic opinions.
Fin’ amor(s), often translated by the term “courtly love,” formed an essential element in the poetry of the troubadours and in romances by Beroul, Thomas, Chrétien de Troyes, Jean Renart, and others, and influenced love poetry from the twelfth century to the fifteenth. In his classic study The Allegory of Love, Clive Staples Lewis lists the constituent traits of courtly love: humility, courtesy, adultery, and the religion of love.
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- Fifteenth-Century Studies Vol. 31 , pp. 31 - 46Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2006