Rutebeuf looks at the world: the architectures are in ruins and the objects are broken, the trees are losing their leaves and winter is setting in. The poet’s “Li vers” evoke this “diverse” world, both changing and bad, and “l’ivers”, the cold season of destitution and death. New values ??then govern behavior: money has replaced generosity; Avarice, Cruelty and Envy have undermined Humility, Charity, Nobility of Soul. While cities and universities are developing, a new theology permeates the streets and minds. The universe described by Rutebeuf is unstable and perverted; the agents of this “bestourné” world are the mendicant brothers. In the poet’s imagination, they are regularly assimilated to the fox, symbol of cunning and hypocrisy. The poet's activity finds its origin in this world that is breaking with ancient, courteous and epic values... And, in many poetic forms, with all the resources of rhetoric, Rutebeuf's words reveal, denounce, threaten, in a tone of lamentation or satire. The poet's writing in turn attempts to turn the inverted world around, to put it back the right way up, in the sense of religious and moral rules and values. And since the world is turned upside down, he will give it a literal image and "turn it into a beast": hypocritical men are foxes. Thus, despite their gray frocks girded with a rope, behind their masks, the mendicants are called Renart. - [Author]

Language: French

1955-2424; DOI: 10.4000/crm.2685