Because the Roman de Renart aspired to create a looking-glass world that portrayed the high society of the courtly period through the personae of animals, its characters were committed to depicting the tragi-comic ambiguity of erotic love and the traditional theme of tensions between husbands, wives and lovers – all of which provided an ideal opportunity for its authors to display their artistic verve. What is perhaps more surprising is the fact that the resulting stories extend into the realm of the king’s justice: that is, in the context of feudal law, that the accused must be assumed to be guilty, a personification of cunning, hypocrisy and fraudulence. The authors of the Roman de Renart, in engaging with a subject that lends itself so well to both the generating of fantasy and objective scrutiny of a fundamental aspect of society, and in manipulating an interplay of nuances of humour, proffer an original and singularly effective picture of the world around them, or one which they reconstruct. Other courtroom episodes that follow later in the evolution of this story over several decades, affirm that the idea was sound and destined to thrive. - [Author]

Language: English

ISBN: 1-57181-737-9