The Roman de Renart stories in modern French prose.

The Middle Ages is first of all, for us, chivalry, courteous love, the Frankish epic or the crusades. These images are not false but they are incomplete. Thanks to the novel by Renard we also know the “towards the decor”. Inspired by the abundant and often disparate whole bequeathed by the storytellers of the 12th and 13th century, Maurice Genevoix composed from this vast “popular epic” a real modern novel, as Joseph Bédier had done for legend of Tristan and Yseut. A poet of the animal world and nature, Maurice Genevoix has singularly enriched the framework and action of the old stories. He condensed, concentrated, rebuilt the episodes that a reader of today would not have followed effortlessly. But above all the simple notations of circumstances or decor took a sensitive and colorful content under his pen. From the heterogeneous mosaic of medieval texts was thus born a new, lively and lasting work which is, we could say, our jungle book. This edition is prefaced by Mr. Jean Dufournet, specialist in medieval literature, who rigorously and thoroughly analyzes the genesis of this work, its links with tradition and its own originality. - [Publisher]

Language: French