The New Reynard: Three Satires
Translated by Nigel Bryant
The Boydell Press
ISBN: 978 1 78327 738 4
The medieval tales involving Reynard the Fox are always a fun read. Here we have translations of three satires from the 13th century, which sees our mischievous protagonist poking fun at politics of the medieval kind.
Excerpt:
Rarely can a medieval work have resonated with the mood of the present as uncannily as do these three satires. Acerbic, raging and finally apocalyptic, these poems from the second half of the thirteenth century express a vision of the world and its descent into corruption and disasters which mirrors our own state of rampant alarm… And that is what we have in these three satires centred on the Fox: the poet Rutebuef’s Renart le Bestourne (‘Reynard Transformed’), the anonymous Le Couronnement de Renart (‘Reynard Crowned’) and Renart le Nouvel (‘The New Reynard’) by the probably pseudonymous ‘Jacquemart le Gielee’.
Who is this book for?
Reynard the Fox is one of the more popular characters in medieval literature, and this collection of translated texts will be a must buy for those researching the wily character. It will have an even boarder interest in those studying 13th-century literature and even music, as one of the texts comes with musical notation.
The translator
Nigel Bryant, an Arthurian scholar, is well known for publishing over a dozen translations of works from medieval French for wider audiences.
You can learn more about this book from the publisher’s website
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