The Audience as Co-Creator of the First Chivalric Romances
1981; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 11; Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/3506256
ISSN2222-4289
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis
ResumoWho comprised the audience for chivalric romance? What expectations did they bring to their encounters with the first self-consciously fictional narratives of the modern European tradition, composed for them by Chretien de Troyes, Gautier d'Arras, and other twelfth-century poets in the elegant cadences of the courtly French vernacular? Few questions more difficult than these confront the student of medieval literature. Despite the labours of generations of historians of literature and society, no consensus has emerged about the composition and response of the public to whom Chretien and his contemporaries directed their sophisticated tales of love and adventure. Our main problem is the lack of sufficient independent evidence outside the texts to allow us to reconstruct their social milieu.
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