Melion and Biclarel - University of Liverpool

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Two Old French Werwolf Lays Melion was first edited by L.-J.-N. Monmerqué and Francisque Michel in 7 1832, then by Horak in 1882, Grimes in 1928, Peter Holmes in 1952 and Tobin in 1976. Tobin’s edition has been reproduced by Pagani with a facing Italian translation (1984), and by Micha with a facing French translation (1992). Prose translations of Melion exist as follows: into French (Régnier-Bohler, 1979), Dutch (Jongen and Verhuyck, 1985), Spanish (de Riquer, 1987) and English (Nicholson, 1999). BICLAREL Biclarel is an extract from the first redaction (A-text) of Le Roman de Renart le 8 Contrefait, a text of some 32,000 lines, preserved in MS Paris, Bibliothèque 4 Nationale de France, fr. 1630, anc. 7630 , de la Mare 284; Biclarel appears in f.188 col. a – f.190, col. d. Displaying characteristics of the Champenois dialect, 9 the manuscript dates from the first third of the fourteenth century. 10 Biclarel was first published by Tarbé in 1851 under the heading ‘l’histoire de Biclarel’, with some of the Champenois dialectal spellings and word forms 11 converted to standard Francien forms. In 1914, Raynaud and Lemaitre published 7 8 I regret that I have been unable to consult this edition. Le Roman de Renart ‘is a specifically medieval reworking of the universal fables best known to modern readers from the collection of Aesop’, whose origins are contemporaneous with Marie de France, Chrétien de Troyes, Thomas and Béroul (Gravdal, p. 47). Renart le Contrefait (‘Renart the Hypocrite’) was the last of numerous medieval redactions of the text; the author, as the editors Raynaud and Lemaitre observe, intended ‘non pas imiter le Roman de Renart, mais se contrefaire à Renart’ (I, pp. v-vi, their emphasis) and to provide a critique of society, particularly church figures (Flinn, Le Roman de Renart, p. 369). 9 ‘Mediæval Champagne did not possess a clearly-defined dialect of its own; it was rather a meeting-place of dialectal features of the Centre (Ile-de-France), North and East. The language of Southern Champagne, with Troyes as its capital, is largely identical with that of the Ile-de- France…’ (Reid, ‘Introduction’ to Foerster’s edition of Yvain, p. xvii, cf. Pope, From Latin to Modern French, p. 497, §1324). 10 11 Raynaud and Lemaitre, I, p. v. For example, Tarbé substitutes Francien e for the characteristic Champenois a before some nasals: thus MS an, ancore, antier are rendered as en, encore, entier throughout and san standardised to sen (see Pope, p. 173, §447 (2) and Reid, p. xx. Cf. the works of Chrétien de Troyes for similar dialectal features, for example Yvain: ‘Il n’a courtoisie ne san / An plet d’oiseuse maintenir’ (vv. 98-99)). Tarbé retains other Champenois elements, such as the stressed ge / gie forms (cf. Pope, p. 321, §829). 8
Introduction a complete edition of the B-text of Renart le Contrefait, and included Biclarel in the Appendix among transcriptions of passages from the A-text which had been omitted from the later redaction. The present work provides the first translation of Biclarel. Date and Authorship MELION The author of Melion is unknown. Tobin describes him as ‘un remanieur de vieux motifs, un jongleur professionnel’, whose talent is inferior to that of Marie de France (Les Lais anonymes, p. 292). Following earlier scholars, Tobin supplies 12 a broad date of composition between 1170 and 1267; from her examination of the internal textual evidence, especially the name of the hero, she posits a narrower date, between 1190 and 1204. 13 BICLAREL The author of Le Roman de Renart le Contrefait provides some autobiographical details. He states that the first version was written between 1319, when he was about forty years old, and 1322; he began the B-text in 1328 and completed it around 1342 (Raynaud and Lemaitre, I, p. vi). Many of Renart’s adventures have been omitted from the B-text and other passages rearranged; the religious angle has been developed, and additional passages on theology, hagiography, history 12 The earlier date may indicate composition contemporaneous with, even earlier than, Marie’s Bisclavret. 13 The narrow dating supposes that the author may have taken his hero’s name from Chrétien de Troyes’s Melianz de Lis (Tobin, p. 292) in Erec et Enide, in which he appears in a list of Round Table knights (ed. Roques, v. 1678), or from an episode in Perceval, in which he is beaten by Gawain (ed. Roach, vv. 4816-5601). Internal evidence suggests that Chrétien was writing before 1191 (Lacy, The Arthurian Handbook, p. 68). Tobin’s terminus ad quem supposes that Melion’s author used the name before Lahamon had attached it to Mordred’s son in his Brut. Tobin notes (p. 291) that R. S. Loomis proposes that the Brut was composed after 1204 (Lahamon refers to Eleanor of Aquitaine, who died in that year, in the past tense), although he admits the possibility of earlier composition around 1189 or 1190. Tobin (p. 291) also refers to a variant of the name, in the form Melahan, which occurs in La Mort le Roi Artu, dated around 1230 by Frappier. Tobin also suggests that Melion’s author may have known Andreas Capellanus’s Tractatus de amore, written around 1184 (p. 291). 9
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Page 5 and 6: Contents Acknowledgements .........
Page 7: Introduction 1 Melion and Biclarel
Page 11 and 12: Introduction 19 innovation in her P
Page 13 and 14: Introduction in evoking the origina
Page 15 and 16: Introduction marries a lady. Biclar
Page 17 and 18: Introduction Bisclavret’s revelat
Page 19 and 20: Introduction enchanter transforms a
Page 21 and 22: Introduction Grimes follows Kittred
Page 23 and 24: Introduction Is it not possible, ho
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Page 27 and 28: Introduction that the transformatio
Page 29 and 30: Introduction instigation of Gawain,
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Melion and Biclarel - University of Liverpool

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