I have returned to my first loves by choosing to talk to you about Renart le Nouvel, which is not out of place in Lille in Flanders where Jakemart Giélée finished and signed his work. The reasons that led me to talk to you about the structure of Jakemart Giélée’s work are numerous. The main one is this: partly through my own fault, the main thesis that I defended in 1956 is known essentially through the allusions that Jacques Ribard made to it in his work on Jean de Condé and especially through the use that John Flinn was able to make of what I had written, in his own book where he declares in the Preface: "If my views often coincide with those of H. Roussel, on more than one important point I have expressed a very different opinion". ... I hope, however, not to oversimplify Flinn's thinking in my turn by saying that our disagreement concerns the very interpretation of the work. For our Canadian colleague, Jakemart Giélée’s relations with the chapter of Saint-Pierre, with Jean Makiel, clerk of Guy de Dampierre and indirect protector of Adenet le Roi, or with Adam de la Bassée who lived on the same street as Jakemart Giélée, remain hypothetical and should not be taken into account in the interpretation of the work. Furthermore (I quote) “I no longer agree with Roussel when he tends to maintain that the satire of ecclesiastical morals and the anticlericalism that are so marked in Renart le Nouvel are simply an integral part of traditional themes and do not necessarily reflect Jakemart Giélée’s true thinking.” - [Author]

Language: French