
The New Reynard
Three Satires: Renart le Bestourne, Le Couronnement de Renart, Renart le Nouvel
Boydell Press
Published on 4. April 2023
Book
Hardback
222 pages
978-1-78327-738-4 (ISBN)
Description
A translation of three works from the second half of the 13th century: Rutebeuf's Renart le Bestourne, the anonymous Le Couronnement de Renart and Jacquemart Gielee's Renart le Nouvel. These savage and highly entertaining satires are in a league of their own, and Renart le Nouvel contains important music which is reproduced in the text.
Rarely can a medieval work have resonated with the mood of the present as uncannily as do these three satires. Acerbic, raging and finally apocalyptic, these poems from the second half of the thirteenth century, richly entertaining and wickedly comic though they are, express a vision of the world and its descent into corruption and disaster which mirrors our own state of rampant alarm.
The animal tales of the 12th- and 13th-century Roman de Renart - the Romance of Reynard the Fox - were immensely popular. Any satire in those original tales was generally light of touch, but the characters created in them, fox and wolf and ass and lion to name but four, were an open invitation to anyone of a more scathing satirical bent. The poet Rutebeuf, in his short but startling Renart le Bestourne ('Reynard Transformed'), deploys the beasts to make a venomous attack on the mendicant orders and on 'Saint' Louis IX of France. The anonymous Le Couronnement de Renart ('Reynard Crowned') then has the Fox crowned king, establishing a reign of every vice. And most ambitiously of all, Jacquemart Gielee in his Renart le Nouvel ('The New Reynard'), gripped by an increasingly pervasive sense of apocalypse, ends his poem with the Fox, the epitome of deceit and lying, not merely crowned king, but seated in permanent, malign control of the world atop a chocked, unturning Fortune's Wheel.
The New Reynard is of special interest not only to students of medieval literature but also to musicologists. Music, in the form of numerous songs, plays an important part in Renart le Nouvel's satirical and apocalyptic message, and the poem is renowned as the most abundant source of late medieval refrains. The notations have survived, and the music is edited in this volume by Matthew P. Thomson.
Rarely can a medieval work have resonated with the mood of the present as uncannily as do these three satires. Acerbic, raging and finally apocalyptic, these poems from the second half of the thirteenth century, richly entertaining and wickedly comic though they are, express a vision of the world and its descent into corruption and disaster which mirrors our own state of rampant alarm.
The animal tales of the 12th- and 13th-century Roman de Renart - the Romance of Reynard the Fox - were immensely popular. Any satire in those original tales was generally light of touch, but the characters created in them, fox and wolf and ass and lion to name but four, were an open invitation to anyone of a more scathing satirical bent. The poet Rutebeuf, in his short but startling Renart le Bestourne ('Reynard Transformed'), deploys the beasts to make a venomous attack on the mendicant orders and on 'Saint' Louis IX of France. The anonymous Le Couronnement de Renart ('Reynard Crowned') then has the Fox crowned king, establishing a reign of every vice. And most ambitiously of all, Jacquemart Gielee in his Renart le Nouvel ('The New Reynard'), gripped by an increasingly pervasive sense of apocalypse, ends his poem with the Fox, the epitome of deceit and lying, not merely crowned king, but seated in permanent, malign control of the world atop a chocked, unturning Fortune's Wheel.
The New Reynard is of special interest not only to students of medieval literature but also to musicologists. Music, in the form of numerous songs, plays an important part in Renart le Nouvel's satirical and apocalyptic message, and the poem is renowned as the most abundant source of late medieval refrains. The notations have survived, and the music is edited in this volume by Matthew P. Thomson.
Reviews / Votes
This volume does what it says on the cover-it delivers three excellent translations of three satirical works about Reynard the Fox and his anthropomorphized animal companions, with some equally excellent and very useful footnotes. * STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE TEACHING (SMART) *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Woodbridge
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
69 music exx.
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
505 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78327-738-4 (9781783277384)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
04/2023
1st Edition
Boydell & Brewer
€48.99
Available for download

The New Reynard
Three Satires: Renart le Bestourné, Le Couronnement de Renart, Renart le Nouvel
E-Book
04/2023
1st Edition
De Gruyter
€48.99
Available for download
Person
NIGEL BRYANT is well known for his lively and accurate versions of medieval French works. His translations of Chretien de Troyes' Perceval and all its continuations and of the extraordinary late Arthurian romance Perceforest have been major achievements; he has also translated Jean le Bel's history of the early stages of the Hundred Years War, and the 13th- and 14th-century biographies of William Marshal and Bertrand du Guesclin. He was awarded the 2019 Norris J. Lacy Prize for outstanding editorial achievement in Arthurian studies.
Translation
Content
Introduction
Reynard Transformed
Reynard Crowned
The New Reynard
Love, and love songs
Hope ... and the opposite
Entertainment
Satire general, satire specific
Authors, Dates, Manuscripts and Editions
Translating the verse
The Refrains in Renart le Nouvel
Further Reading
Reynard Transformed
Renart le Bestourne
Reynard Crowned
Le Couronnement de Renart
The New Reynard
Renart le Nouvel
Index
Reynard Transformed
Reynard Crowned
The New Reynard
Love, and love songs
Hope ... and the opposite
Entertainment
Satire general, satire specific
Authors, Dates, Manuscripts and Editions
Translating the verse
The Refrains in Renart le Nouvel
Further Reading
Reynard Transformed
Renart le Bestourne
Reynard Crowned
Le Couronnement de Renart
The New Reynard
Renart le Nouvel
Index