Description
Book SynopsisStudy exploring the treatment of the Arthurian legends by the French Romantic movement.French Romanticism was a widespread movement, as apparent in the works of historians and scholars as in the works of creative writers. One of its principal characteristics was the cult of the middle ages, and this book examines the treatment of the Arthurian legends in French Romantic medievalism. Taking into account works of historiography and literary history, as well as literary texts proper, it assesses the place of the Arthurian material in French culture in the period up to 1860, the date of publication of Edgar Quinet's
Merlin l'enchanteur. In so doing, it reveals key features of French Romanticism and traces the origins of some of the problems and contradictions which still affect the practice of medieval studies. The authorargues that the depiction of Arthurian legends in French Romantic writing discloses some of the underlying ideological positions of the movement and the developing tensions between the interests of a general literary public and the ambitions of scholars seeking to define and promote medieval literature as an emerging field of study. In addition to scholars such as Claude Fauriel, Paulin Paris and Francisque Michel, other important figures in French Romanticism are considered, including Quinet and Michelet.
MICHAEL GLENCROSSis Senior Lecturer in French at the University College of Ripon & York St John.
Table of ContentsThe ideological background - chivalry, feudalism and romance in the literary critical and historical discourse of the Restoration; the literary background - medieval and Arthurian literature in the Romantic debate in France, 1813-1830; towards the "real" Middle Ages: the status and function of medieval literary scholarship, 1830-1860; in search of national identity - medieval and Arthurian literature in the historical imagination of Quinet, Mechelet and Henri Martin; the bard and the troubadour - the debate on the origins and diffusion of the Arthurian material in French Romantic scholarship; retelling the tale - new versions of the Arthurian material in French literature, 1812-1860.
