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Graelent
''Graelent'' is an Old French Breton lai, named after Guiomar (Arthurian legend), its protagonist. It is one of the so-called :Anonymous lais, anonymous lais . Synopsis The plot is similar to that of Marie de France's lai of ''Lanval''. Guiomar (Arthurian legend), Graelent, a knight of Brittany, rebuffs amorous advances from the queen, who retaliates by manipulating the king against him. Graelent's wages are suspended, reducing him to poverty. Graelent dejectedly rides into the forest, and while tracking a white hind (''bisse blance'' v. 201; Modern French, Mod. Fr.: '), he stumbles upon a beautiful lady bathing in the fountain, attended by two maidens. Graelent sneaks up and clutches the articles of clothing she has disrobed upon a bush. The lady cries out his name, demanding their return. Graelent does not comply, and bargains for her to emerge from the fountain, and asks for her love. She is at first scornful at the suggestion, but Graelent rapes her, and she then decides to h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guingamor
''Guingamor'' is an anonymous medieval lai about a knight who leaves the court of his uncle, a king, because the queen has sent him off to hunt for a white boar. By offering a reward for the boar's head, she hopes to get rid of the protagonist Guingamor, who has refused her sexual advances. Guingamor crosses a river and passes into a mystical kingdom. Returning with the boar's head after what seems to him like three days, he encounters a common charcoal-maker, who tells him that many years have passed since the king's faithful nephew never returned from a hunt for the white boar. Guingamor's return is triumphant and he is immortalized in a lai. The story was once presumed to have been written by Marie de France Marie de France (fl. 1160 to 1215) was a poet, possibly born in what is now France, who lived in England during the late 12th century. She lived and wrote at an unknown court, but she and her work were almost certainly known at the royal court o ..., but is now conside ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guiomar (Arthurian Legend)
Guiomar is the best known name of a character appearing in many medieval texts relating to the Matter of Britain, Arthurian legend, often in relationship with Morgan le Fay or a similar Fairy Queen, fairy queen type character. In medieval literature His earliest known appearances are as Graelent, Guingamor and Guigemar, the titular character of three 12th-century Breton lai "fairy lais" (''lais féeriques''): ''Graelent'', ''Guingamor'' and ''Guigemar'', each telling a similar story. There, he is a king's relative or vassal who, after rejecting the advances of the unnamed queen (the king's adulterous and jealous wife), becomes a lover of a fairy queen known only as the Fairy Mistress (a figure considered to represent Morgan le Fay, Morgan) and is taken to an Otherworld (Avalon). All of these texts are related to Marie de France's ''Lanval'', where the human queen character is Guinevere. Guinguemar (''Guigomar'', ''Guingomar'', ''Gryngamore'') is one of the vassals of King Arthu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lanval
''Lanval'' is one of the Lais of Marie de France. Written in Anglo-Norman, it tells the story of Lanval, a knight at King Arthur's court, who is overlooked by the king, wooed by a fairy lady, given all manner of gifts by her, and subsequently refuses the advances of Queen Guinevere. The plot is complicated by Lanval's promise not to reveal the identity of his mistress, which he breaks when Guinevere accuses him of having "no desire for women". Before Arthur, Guinevere accuses Lanval of shaming her, and Arthur, in an extended judicial scene, demands that he reveal his mistress. Despite the broken promise, the fairy lover eventually appears to justify Lanval, and to take him with her to Avalon. The tale was popular, and was adapted into English as ''Sir Landevale'', ''Sir Launfal'', and ''Sir Lambewell''. Plot Lanval, a knight in King Arthur's court, envied for "his valor, his generosity, his beauty, his prowess", is forgotten from being invited to a banquet where the King distribut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chivalric Sagas
The ''riddarasögur'' (literally 'sagas of knights', also known in English as 'chivalric sagas', 'romance-sagas', 'knights' sagas', 'sagas of chivalry') are Norse prose sagas of the romance genre. Starting in the thirteenth century with Norse translations of French '' chansons de geste'' and Latin romances and histories, the genre expanded in Iceland to indigenous creations in a similar style. While the ''riddarasögur'' were widely read in Iceland for many centuries they have traditionally been regarded as popular literature inferior in artistic quality to the Icelanders' sagas and other indigenous genres. Receiving little attention from scholars of Old Norse literature, many remain untranslated. The production of chivalric sagas in Scandinavia was focused on Norway in the thirteenth century and then Iceland in the fourteenth. Vernacular Danish and Swedish romances came to prominence rather later and were generally in verse; the most famous of these are the Eufemiavisorna, them ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Henry Schofield
William Henry Schofield (1870–1920) was an American academic, founder of the ''Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature''. He was professor of comparative literature at Harvard University, and president of the American-Scandinavian Foundation (1916–1919). He taught Old Norse at Harvard from 1900 and from 1906 was director of the new Comparative Literature department. Victoria College, B.A. 1889; Harvard University PhD 1895; Professor of Comparative Literature Harvard University, 1906–20; Harvard Exchange Professor at University of Berlin, 1907; Lecturer at the Sorbonne and University of Copenhagen, 1910. Harvard Exchange Professor at Western Colleges, 1918. Information taken from a bookplate from Victoria University Library (Toronto, Ontario, Canada); book purchased from The Schofield Fund in memory of William Henry Schofield. Accession date: Jan. 27, 1937. itle : The Blickling homilies Works Some of the best known are volume II in ''Harvard Studies in Comparative L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swan Maiden
The swan maiden is a mythical creature who shapeshifts from human form to swan form. The key to the transformation is usually a swan skin, or a garment with swan feathers attached. In folktales of this type, the male character spies the maiden, typically by some body of water (usually bathing), then snatches away the feather garment (or some other article of clothing), which prevents her from flying away (or swimming away, or renders her helpless in some other manner), forcing her to become his wife. There are parallels around the world, notably the ''Völundarkviða'' and ''Grimms' Fairy Tales'' KHM 193 " The Drummer". There are also many parallels involving creatures other than swans. Legend Typical legend The folktales usually adhere to the following basic plot. A young, unmarried man steals a magic robe made of swan feathers from a swan maiden who comes to bathe in a body of water, so that she will not fly away, and marries her. Usually she bears his children. When the chil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strengleikar
''Strengleikar'' (English: ''Stringed Instruments'') is a collection of twenty-one Old Norse prose tales based on the Old French '' Lais'' of Marie de France. It is one of the literary works commissioned by King Haakon IV of Norway (r. 1217-1263) for the Norwegian court, and is counted among the Old Norse Chivalric sagas. The collection is anonymous. It has been attributed to Brother Robert, a cleric who adapted several French works into Norse under Haakon, the best known of which is ''Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar'' (a Norse version of the Tristan and Iseult legend), but there is also reason to think that the collection may be a gathering of the work of several different translators. Unlike many medieval translations, the ''Strengleikar'' are generally extremely close in sense to the Old French originals; the text which differs most is ''Milun'', which is abridged to half its original length. Lais and their sources The ''Strengleikar'' comprise: * ''Forræða'' 'prologue' * ''B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Chestre
Thomas Chestre was the author of a 14th-century Middle English romance ''Sir Launfal'', a verse romance of 1045 lines based ultimately on Marie de France's Breton lay '' Lanval''. He was possibly also the author of the 2200-line ''Libeaus Desconus'', a story of Sir Gawain's son Gingalain based upon similar traditions to those that inspired Renaut de Beaujeu's late-12th-century or early-13th-century Old French romance '' Le Bel Inconnu'', and also possibly of a Middle English retelling of the mid-13th-century Old French romance ''Octavian''. Geoffrey Chaucer parodied ''Libeaus Desconus'', among other Middle English romances, in his Canterbury Tale of ''Sir Thopas''. Sir Launfal The name Thomas Chestre occurs only once in medieval writings, in the single manuscript copy that remains of the late-14th-century Middle English verse romance ''Sir Launfal''. It is found in British Library MS Cotton Caligula A.ii, fols 35v-42v, dating from the first half of the 15th centuryLaskaya, Anne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rímur
In Icelandic literature, a ''ríma'' (, literally "a rhyme", pl. ''rímur'', ) is an epic poem written in any of the so-called ''rímnahættir'' (, "rímur meters"). They are rhymed, they alliterate and consist of two to four lines per stanza. The plural, ''rímur'', is either used as an ordinary plural, denoting any two or more rímur, but is also used for more expansive works, containing more than one ríma as a whole. Thus '' Ólafs ríma Haraldssonar'' denotes an epic about Ólafr Haraldsson in one ríma, while '' Núma rímur'' are a multi-part epic on Numa Pompilius. Form ''Rímur'', as the name suggests, rhyme, but like older Germanic alliterative verse, they also contain structural alliteration. ''Rímur'' are stanzaic, and stanzas normally have four lines. There are hundreds of ''ríma'' meters: Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson counts 450 variations in his ''Háttatal''. But they can be grouped in approximately ten ''families''. The most common metre is ''ferskeytt''.Véstein ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Skíðaríma
''Skíðaríma'' () is a humorous Icelandic ríma, of unknown authorship, dated to around 1450–1500. Summary The hero is the audacious and inventive beggar Skíði, who was apparently a historic figure from the 12th century. It was also a real event that he had a dream in 1195, and it is this dream that is the matter of ''Skíðaríma''. Skíði dreams that Óðinn sends Þórr to fetch Skíði in order to broker peace between Heðinn and Högni as their incessant war about Hildr threatens to destroy Valhalla. Skíði manages to make peace by asking to marry Hildr and finding her willing. However, as Skíði could not stop mentioning the word ''God'' in front of the Æsir, and finally makes the sign of the cross, Heimdallr struck him in the mouth with the Gjallarhorn. However, some of the Einherjar side with Skíði, whereas others are against him. A great battle ensued with a great many heroic deeds, some of them done by the pathetic beggar himself, until finally Sigurðr th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English period. Scholarly opinion varies, but the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' specifies the period when Middle English was spoken as being from 1150 to 1500. This stage of the development of the English language roughly followed the High to the Late Middle Ages. Middle English saw significant changes to its vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and orthography. Writing conventions during the Middle English period varied widely. Examples of writing from this period that have survived show extensive regional variation. The more standardized Old English language became fragmented, localized, and was, for the most part, being improvised. By the end of the period (about 1470) and aided by the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 14 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligible yet diverse, spoken in the northern half of France. These dialects came to be collectively known as the , contrasting with the in the south of France. The mid-14th century witnessed the emergence of Middle French, the language of the French Renaissance in the Île de France region; this dialect was a predecessor to Modern French. Other dialects of Old French evolved themselves into modern forms (Poitevin-Saintongeais, Gallo, Norman, Picard, Walloon, etc.), each with its own linguistic features and history. The region where Old French was spoken natively roughly extended to the northern half of the Kingdom of France and its vassals (including parts of the Angevin Empire, which during the 12th century remained under Anglo-Norman rul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
