The Art of Medieval French Romance

Front Cover
University of Wisconsin Press, Apr 15, 1992 - Literary Criticism - 489 pages

Douglas Kelly provides a comprehensive and historically valid analysis of the art of medieval French romance as the romancers themselves describe it. He focuses on well-known writers, such as Chrétien de Troyes and Marie de France, and also draws on a wide range of other sources—prose romances, non-Arthurian romances, thirteenth-century verse romances, and variant versions from the later Middle Ages.
Kelly is the first scholar to present the “art” of medieval romance to a modern audience through the interventions and comments of medieval writers themselves. The book begins by examining the difficulties scholars perceive in medieval literature: problems such as source and intertextuality, structure in its manifold modern meanings, and character psychology and individuality. These issues frame Kelly’s identification and discussion of all the known authorial interventions on the art and craft of romance. Kelly’s careful reconstruction of the “art” of romance, based on the records left by the romancers themselves, will be an invaluable resource and guide for all medievalists.

From inside the book

Contents

Introduction
3
Conjointure
15
Literary Paradigm
32
Copyright

15 other sections not shown

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (1992)

Douglas Kelly is the Julian E. Harris Professor of French and Italian at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Bibliographic information