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Tag Archives: jurisprudence

Reynard the Fox: various Facets

21 Friday Apr 2017

Posted by michelinewalker in Beast Literature, Grotesque, Middle Ages, Roman de Renart

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

anthropomorphism, Beast Epics, Courtly Literature, jurisprudence, La Chanson de Roland, le Fabliau, Le Roman de Renart, Mock Epics, Renart's "engin", the Ysengrimus, To delight and to instruct, Tricksters tales

fr_1581_019

http://classes.bnf.fr/renart/arret/02.htm (BnF) 
http://classes.bnf.fr/renart/livre/ (the text) FR 

Beast Epics: Antecedents

  • Beast Fables
  • Beast Epics or “mock-epics”

Given their length and a dramatis personæ consisting of animals, the 12th-century Roman de Renart and its immediate predecessor, Nivardus of Ghent’s Ysengrimus (1148-1149), bring to mind Vishnu Sharma‘s Sanskrit Panchatantra and its best-known Arabic analog, Ibn al-Muqaffa‘s Kalīlah wa Dimnah, but the Ysengrimus and the Roman de Renart are mock-epics, which was new. The Panchatantra and Kalīlah wa Dimnah contained fables told by a story-teller, the sage Bidpai (Bidpaï, Pilpay). Their purpose was to prepare the prince for his future role as king. The fables of Bidpai constitute inset tales, Innerfabeln, inserted in a frame story, le récit-cadre or an Ausserfabel. In other words, we have an author and a story-teller.

By the final quarter of the 16th century in England, Bidpai’s fables constituted Thomas North’s Morall Philosophy of Doni (1571).[1] In France, the Panchatantra and the Arabic Kalīlah wa Dimnah, or the Fables of Bidpai, culminated in Orientalist Gilbert Gaulmin‘s translation of the fables of Pilpay, Le Livre des lumières, ou la Conduite des rois, les Fables de Pilpay FR, published in 1644. In 1678, the year Jean de La Fontaine published his second collection (recueil) of fables, books VII to XI inclusively, he drew some of his material from Æsop, but his fables were also rooted in Gaulmin’s Livre des lumières, ou la Conduite des rois, les fables de Pilpay. FR

The Middle Ages: the first of two Traditions

  • Marie de France
  • to delight and to instruct
  • Avianus and the Romulus

As of the publication of Paul the Deacon‘s Ægrum fama fuit and that of the reportedly anonymous Ecbasis cuisdam captivi,[2] didactic fables remained. They were written as Roman poet Horace (8 December 65 BCE – 27 November 8 BCE) suggested: to delight and to instruct.

Poetess Marie de France (fl. 1160 to 1215), wrote a sick-lion tale, “The Lion and the Fox.” Four centuries later, Jean de La Fontaine composed a sick-lion tale entitled “The Lion, the Wolf and the Fox” / “Le Lion, le Loup et le Renard” (2.VIII.3). These poems contained a lesson. In the Æsopic, “The Lion, the Wolf, and the Fox,” number 258 in the Perry Index, the wolf attempts to defame the fox and pays the cost. He is flayed.

It should also be noted that students in their trivium used fables drawn from the Ysopet-Avionnet, a collection of Æsop’s Fables. In the 4th century, fabulist Avianus compiled a collection of fables that included not only fables set into written form by Roman author Phaedrus, but also fables removed from an oral tradition by Greek fabulist Babrius. Avianus set Babrius’ Greek Æsopic fables into Latin elegiac poems. The Ysopet-Avionnet, Avionnet from Avianus, endured until the first quarter of the 20th century. (See Ysopet, Wikipedia.) The Ysopet-Avionnet is an Internet Archive publication. Another 4th _century prose collection, entitled the Romulus, was also used widely.[3]

To sum up, the Reynard cycle (there are many Reynards), mock-epics featuring animals, did not ever eclipse fables written to instruct and to delight, many of which were short trickster tales belonging to the Æsopic corpus and included in the Ysengrimus and the Roman de Renart. However, a new tradition emerged.

The Second Tradition

  • trickster tales
  • the grotesque
  • fabliaux

We are now leaving didactic fables. Henceforth, trickster tales will dominate in which beasts will be beasts, including anthropomorphic animals. The Ysengrimus and the Roman de Renart are not edifying literature. The Middle Ages favoured the grotesque, from gargoyles (water spouts) to misericords (mercy seats in cathedrals and various monasteries). Moreover, we have entered the world of the fabliau. Fabliaux are mostly obscene and, at times, scatological. Paul the Deacon’s Ægrum Fama Fuit, the sick-lion tale, and the Ecbasis captivi therefore inaugurate the medieval mock-epics tradition, epitomized in the Ysengrimus and the Roman de Renart, or the Reynard cycle, which includes Geoffrey Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale.

However, our beast epics are characterized by the use of sophisticated versification and by their length. For instance, using sophisticated versification to tell the story of a rather senseless calf who leaves the pack and is captured by a wolf is dissonant and ironic. The longer the beast fable, the greater its dissonance and irony. Paulus Diaconus’ 8th -century  Ægrum Fama Fuit contains 24 Latin distichs, which is relatively short, but the Ecbasis captivi runs 1,230 lines written in hexameters with, frequently, Leonine internal rhyme, Nivard de Gand’s Ysengrimus is a tour de force: 6,574 lines in elegiac couplets. As for the Roman de Renart, it is not entirely versified, but the poem contains 2,410 lines in eight syllables (octosyllabic) verses in rhymed couplets.

Clearly, superior versification and the length of these beast fables do not match the subject matter: the vendetta[4] between Reynard the fox and the wolf Ysengrin, born Reinardus and Ysengrimus in the Latin Ysengrimus. This discrepancy serves to mock chansons de geste, chivalry and courtly love. Beast epics are the underside of real epics and the courtly literature. They are parodies.

Epics and Courtly literature mocked

  • Matte Maria Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato
  • Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso
  • Chansons de geste: “cycles” and “matters”
  • Courtly literature

Mock-epics, or beast epics are a mundus inversus. They are the reverse of the chansons de geste (songs of deeds) such as the Carolingian (Charlemagne) Chanson de Roland / Song of Roland. Roland is the valiant knight who defeats the Basques at the Battle of Roncevaux, in 778. Roland is also Matteo Maria Boiardo‘s Orlando Innamorato, 1483 and 1495, and Ariosto Ludovico‘s Orlando Furioso (1516). The setting is the invasion of European countries by the Moors, Muslim inhabitants of Northern Africa. But Matteo Maria Boiardo had fought in the Ottoman–Venetian War (1463–1479). On 29 May 1453, the Byzantine Empire (and Anatolia) had fallen to the Ottoman Turks, separating Western Christianity and Eastern Christianity, the Near East.

In Medieval Literature, these romances originate in the Carolingian and Arthurian (King Arthur) cycles. Arthurian romances are part of the matter of Britain. Cycles are a group of literary works on the same subject, the Reynard narratives are a cycle, but under its entry on Mock-epic Britannica lists three “cycles:” the “matter of Rome the great,” the “matter of France,” and the “matter of Britain.”

Medieval romance is classified into three major cycles: the “matter of Rome the great,” the “matter of France,” and the “matter of Britain” (“matter” here is a literal translation of the French matière, referring to subject matter, theme, topic, etc.). The matter of Rome, a misnomer, refers to all tales derived from Latin classics. The matter of France includes the stories of Charlemagne and his Twelve Noble Peers [Paladins]. The matter of Britain refers to stories of King Arthur and his knights, the Tristan stories, and independent tales having an English background, such as Guy of Warwick. (Mock-epic.)[5]

I should think that El Cantar de Mio Cid a chanson [cantar] de geste, is also a cycle and the celebration of heroic deeds (gestes). Epics such as the Chanson de Roland, feature noble knights in shining armour who belong to courtly literature. These valiant knights will submit to demeaning tasks to earn the love of an idealized woman, a précieuse avant la lettre. Medieval chansons de geste intersect chivalric and courtly literature, the Roman de la Rose, which constitutes courtly love’s literary pinnacle. The rape of Hersent cannot be associated with courtly love.

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Chivalry (BnF)

fr_1630_060v (3)

Ysengrin, Renart & Hersent (BnF)

http://classes.bnf.fr/renart/it/genese/05.htm (Chivalry)
http://classes.bnf.fr/renart/it/episodes/07.htm (Ysengrin, Renart & Hersent)

Anthropomorphism & Speech

In anthropomorphic literature, humanness isn’t so much a question of appearance as it is a matter of speech, or the ability to speak. Nivardus of Ghent named his characters, highlighting their humanness. We are reminded of T. S. Elliott’s (26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965) Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats and, in particular, of the Naming of Cats.

Jill Mann, who translated the Ysengrimus into English, compares the flayed wolf who survives the removal of his coat to the cats of cartoons. These cats are flattened by a steam-roller, but fluff up again, as though they were impervious to injury and pain:

The recrudescent power of the wolf’s skin is reminiscent of the world of the cartoon where the cat who is squashed flat by a steam-roller, say, is restored to three dimensions in the next frame. [6]

The cats of cartoons live every one of their nine lives as do the Lion-King’s mutilated barons. Neither the flayed wolf nor Bruin the bear, who “loses the skin off his nose,” seem to have sustained permanent and possibly fatal injuries.

We are in an other world where an animal’s fur seems a mere coat and where animals speak, a faculty perhaps denied humans. Lanfrey (Lanfroi), the forester, does not speak. His arrival forces Bruin to sacrifice his nose so his life is spared.

In Ramsay Wood’s translation and adaptation of Kalila and Dimna (Bidpai’s fables), a shaman tells a worried prince who will not believe his gazelle spoke to him and has fallen ill over this matter, that the gazelle did talk to him:

“[Y]our gazelle spoke to you! Don’t you realize that all animals can speak? But they never do so in the company of pitiful humans!”[7]

Moreover, Wikipedia describes the Ysengrimus as a Latin fabliau. Although Hersent (Hersant FR), Ysengrin’s wife, has made love with Renart consensually (Branche II, c. 1110, p. 265), Renart takes advantage of her when she is caught in a hole, her rear end protruding. Yet, Jean Dufournet writes that the Roman de Renart was a “divertissement de clercs” (clerics)[8] and Thomas Best (p. 34) comments that “Pierre de Saint-Cloud wrote [branches II -Va] for recitation to lay nobility, addressed at the very beginning of his poem as seigneurs [lords].” Renart’s short verses, eight syllables, could be read easily by an audience consisting of the nobility of its times.

Codex Manesse
Codex Manesse
Codex Manesse
Codex Manesse

Reynard’s Eloquence

In Reynard the Fox, both animalness and humanness can be a thin veneer. In fact, were Reynard flayed, would his eloquence lose any of its verve? Underneath Reynard’s red coat, lives one of literature’s most eloquent characters. Renard’s barat, or deceitful language, convinces Tiécelin the crow to open his mouth and sing, causing Tiécelin to drop his precious cheese. But most importantly, Renart’s eloquence is such that he can talk himself out of death sentence at least twice: at the end of his “jugement” (branche I) and after Maupertuis, his fortress, is besieged.

Jurisprudence: “you shouldn’t take more than you find”

In this regard, let us note that in Nivardus of Ghent’s Ysengrimus, as the wolf is about to be flayed by the bear, Reynard “suddenly rushes forward with the plea that he [the bear] should ‘take no more than he finds:’ “I make one small request – let there be room for it – grant it – and I’ll show myself deserving: that you shouldn’t take more than you find! He himself never took more than he found. It’s right to take away what one has, but wrong to take away more than that!’ (III 931-4).” (Mann, p. 10.) I see the scales of Lady Justice.

There is no flaying episode in the Roman de Renart, but as he is about to be hanged, Renart uses his engin, his resourcefulness, and finds a ruse exceptionnelle. It occurs to him to argue that before being hanged, he must go on a pilgrimage and atone not to die a sinner. It is as though eternal damnation was too cruel and unusual a punishment for one who has merely eaten a few animals, tricked the greedy wolf, a Monk, and raped Hersent?[9]

The Pilgrimage

It works. Renart, who arrived tardily at the sick Lion-King’s bedside, because he was on a pilgrimage is sent on a pilgrimage, but Renart being Renart, he doesn’t leave for Syria. He simply returns to his fortress, Maupertuis. Molière’s Dom Juan will be called a “pilgrim.” As for Renart’s topsy-turvy defence, it is consistent with Tartuffe‘s casuistry. Moreover, Tartuffe takes no more than he has been given by Orgon.

Fuchs_margin_(MMW10F50_f6r)_detail

A studious fox in a monk’s cowl, in the margins of a Book of Hours, Utrecht, c. 1460 (Photo credit: Reynard, Wikipedia)

Comments

Renart does not always win. In the Æsopic “Le Chat et le Renart”/ “The Cat and the Fox”  [IX. 14] the fox cannot climb a tree. That is the cat’s only trick. But he can transform the grapes he craves, but cannot reach, into sour grapes (“Le Renard et les Raisins”/The Fox and the Grapes [lll. 11). That’s engin. There is, however, a gradual transformation of Reynard. In the “vendetta” opposing a greedy wolf and a smart fox, one starts wondering which of the two is the greater scoundrel: Ysengrin or Reynard?

Renart has become evil itself which is how he is depicted in Jacquemart Gielée’s Renart le Nouvel (1289) and the anonymous Renard le Contrefait (1319 – 1322), French avatars. In later iconography, the animals look almost human. The zoomorphic aspect of the beast featured in the image below is disturbing. These figures are neither animals nor human beings.

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Anthropomorphism (BnF)

http://classes.bnf.fr/renart/it/genese/07.htm (Anthropomorphism)

I will close here having been kept away from my computer by a multitude of events and fatigue. I still have the story to clarify but the Roman de Renart is both parcellaire and unitaire.[10] It is fragmented, piecemeal, yet coherent. The Bibliothèque nationale de France (the BnF) has divided Renart into nine episodes, which is the presentation I have chosen. The BnF uses Jean Dufournet’s authoritative translation (into modern French of the medieval Roman de Renart. (See Dufournet and Méline.)

Love to everyone ♥

RELATED ARTICLES

  • William Caxton’s Reynard the Fox (8 April 2017)
  • Reynard the Fox: Motifs (2 April 2017)
  • The Sick-Lion Tale as Source (19 March 2017)
  • Fables: Varia (12 March 2017)
  • Anthropomorphism and Zoomorphism (6 March 2017)
  • Beast Literature (3 March 2017)
  • Mostly Misericords: the Medieval Bestiary (10 November 2014)
  • It’s no skin off my nose (6 October 2014)
  • Reynard the Fox, the Judgement (25 October 2011)
  • Reynard the fox, the Itinerant (23 October 2011)
  • Reynard the Fox, the Trickster (22 October 2011)

Sources and Resources

  • BnF Bestiaire du Moyen Âge
  • Les Fables de Pilpay are a Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) publication
  • The Ysopet-Avionnet is an Internet Archive publication Latin / FR
  • The Roman de Renart is a Wikisource publication FR
  • Arlima Net (Archives de littérature du Moyen-Âge) FR
  • William Caxton, translator, Henry Morley, introduction, A History of Reynard the Fox (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1889 [1481]).
  • Projet Muse, University of Toronto (Sir Thomas North)
  • The Codex Manesse

_________________________

[1] See Panchatantra, Wikipedia for further details.

[2] In his Introduction to Reynard the Fox, Henry Morley tells that the author of the Ecbasis captivi belonged to the monastery of St. Evre, at Toul. Strict reforms among the brethren, in the year 936, cause his Ecbasis -his going out. He was brought back, and as sign of is regeneration wrote the poem, in which he figured himself “per tropologiam” as a calf, who, having gone out from safety, became captive to the wolf. (Introduction, A History of Reynard the Fox [London: George Routledge and Sons, 1889]), p. 1. The full title of the Ecbasis cuisdam captivi per tropologiam is “The escape of a certain captive, interpreted figuratively.”

[3] Harriet Spiegel, translator and editor, Marie de France: Fables (Toronto: the University of Toronto Press, 2000 [1987], Introduction.

[4] Thomas W. Best, Reynard the Fox (Boston: J. K. Hall & Company, 1983), p. 34.

[5] https://www.britannica.com/art/mock-epic

[6] Jill Mann, “The Satiric Fiction of the Ysengrimus,” in Kenneth Varty (ed.), Reynard the Fox: Social Engagement and Cultural Metamorphoses in the Beast Epic from the Middle Ages to the Present (New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2000), p. 11.

[7] Ramsay Wood (reteller) and Doris Lessing (introduction), Tales of Kalila and Dimna, Classic Fables from India (Rochester Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1980), p. 252.

[8] Jean Dufournet et Andrée Méline, traduction et introduction, Le Roman de Renart (Paris: GF-Flammarion, 1985), p. 7.

[9] Jean Subrenat, “Rape and Adultery: Reflected Facets of Feudal Justice in the Roman de Renart,” in Kenneth Varty, ed. Reynard the Fox: Social Engagement in the Beast Epic from the Middle Ages to the Present (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2000), pp. 17-35.

[10] Jean Batany, Scène et coulisses du «Roman de Renart» (Paris: Sedes, 1989), Chapitre II.

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http://classes.bnf.fr/renart/arret/02_1.htm (BnF)

Werkraum – Slâfest du, friedel ziere?
Ein Tagelied aus dem 12. Jahrhundert von Dietmar von Aist.

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21 April 2017
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It’s no skin off my nose

06 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Beast Literature, Fables

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Bruin the Bear, classification, It's no skin off my nose, jurisprudence, Le Jugement de Renart, Reynard's Judgement, Roman de Renart

—Le roi Noble le lion convoque la cour des animaux Manuscrit copié dans le Nord de la France, fin du XIIIe siècle BnF, Manuscrits, Français 1580 fol. 1 (Photo credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France)
—Le roi Noble le lion convoque la cour des animaux Manuscrit copié dans le Nord de la France, fin du XIIIe siècle BnF, Manuscrits, Français 1580 fol. 1 (Photo credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France)

Le Roman de Renart

The animals at Noble’s court
Noble the lion is king
Renart is the Fox
Ysengrin is the Wolf
Brun (Bruin) is the Bear
the rape of Dame Hersent, Ysengrin’s wife
Fière is the Lion’s wife
 
Aarne-Thomson classification system (ATU) type 2
Perry Index number 17
Perry Index number 24
 

The picture featured above shows the Lion king, Noble. In Branch I, of the Roman de Renart, Le Jugement de Renart[1], the various animals, barons, meet at Noble the Lion’s court that doubles up as a court of justice. Ysengrin tells about his wife Hersent who has been raped when she got stuck in a hole.  (The Roman de Renart is not in chronological order.)

The Lion does not think he can charge Renart with rape as the charge might not “stick.” There is a “history” (“branche” II)between Dame Hersent and Renart, which is known. Nevertheless, when she gets caught in a wall and Renart takes advantage of Dame Hersent, it is rape. It is in Renart’s “nature” (character) to avail himself of every opportunity.

Although a charge of “rape” might not “stick,” the other animals gathered at the Lion’s court come forward to tell Noble that Renart has wronged them time and again. For instance, he has eaten many of their relatives. Hearing their complaints, the king, Noble the lion, decides he now has sufficient reasons to have Renart brought to court, the king’s court of law. Renart’s trial and the discussion that precedes his being brought to trial is masterful. Renart’s trial is a building block in the development of European jurisprudence and has been identified as such.[2]

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Renart et Dame Hersent, br. II (Photo credit: BnF)

Le Jugement de Renart: Reynard’s Judgement

Bruin the bear is the first ambassador, the second is Tyber the cat, and the third, Grimbart the badger 
Maupertuis: Renart’s fortress
Renart the trickster
Bruin’s “nature”
Bruin loses the “skin off [his] nose”
 

Bruin the bear is the first “ambassador” to travel, on horseback, to Maupertuis, Renart’s, fortress. As you may suspect, Renart is not about to follow Bruin to court. Our red fox is the trickster extraordinaire, so he tells Bruin to put his snout down into a slit in a log that is secured by wedges. According to Renart, that is where Lanfroi the forester keeps his honey.

As it is known “by universal popular consent,” bears love honey. Our modern Winnie-the-Pooh gets stuck in a house because he has eaten so much honey he cannot get out the way he came in. He is like Æsop’s swollen fox (“The Fox and the Weasel.” Perry Index 24). To get out, Winnie-the-Pooh must first lose weight. Similarly, Bruin cannot resist looking down the opening in the oak tree he is told contains honey. That is in his “nature.”

By now, Renart is at a distance to protect himself from Lanfroi, but Bruin puts his nose inside the opening in the tree at which point the wedges are removed and he gets caught, or “coincé” (coin = wedge and corner). He sees Lanfroi and “vilains,” villagers, rushing to attack him. Therefore, knowing that he will lose his life if he does not flee, Bruin sacrifices the skin “off [his] nose,” gets on his horse, and travels back to court. When he arrives at court, he is bleeding profusely and faints. “Renart t’a mort” (Renart killed you,” says the king (br. I, v. 724).

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Le siège de Maupertuis (br. Ia) (The Siege of Maupertuis) (Photo credit: BnF)
1311471-Roman_de_Renart__Renart_assiégé_dans_sa_forteresse

Renart assiégé dans sa forteresse (Reynard besieged in his fortress) (Photo credit: BnF)

The Comic Text, or the Steamroller

Bruin seems to be suffering. However, according to Dr. Jill Mann,[3] the translator (into English) of the Ysengrimus, written in 1149 -1150, the birthplace of both Reinardus (Renart) and Ysengrimus (Ysengrin the wolf), the various animals of the Ysengrimus do not suffer.

The Ysengrimus, a 6,574-line fabliau written in Latin elegiac verses, is the Roman de Renart‘s (1274 – 1275) predecessor. Dr. Mann compares the fox and other animals to cartoons where a cat is flattened by a steamroller, but fluffs up again (Jill Mann, p. 11).

“The recrudescent power of the wolf’s skin [bear’s skin] is reminiscent of the world of the cartoon, where the cat who is squashed flat by a steam-roller, is restored to three dimensions in the next frame.” (Mann, p. 11)  

In other words, Reynard the Fox is a forgiving comic text, which allows for devilish pranks that do not harm animals and human beings. They may scream, for appearances, but they return to their normal selves.

The Roman de Renart is translated

Authorship of Ysengrimus has been challenged, but the Ysengrimus exists and it was rewritten in various European languages, the languages of the Netherlands and German, in particular. At any rate, it is of crucial importance that famed translator and printer William Caxton (c. 1415 – c. March 1492) wrote an English version of Reynard the Fox. (See William Caxton – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.) (This translation is available online: The History of Reynard the Fox.)

From “goupil” to “renarT” and “Renard”

Reynard the Fox had to be popular in England as otherwise the expression “it’s no skin off my nose” could not be traced back, albeit hypothetically, to the Reynard cycle. In France, the Roman de Renart was so popular that goupil, the French word for fox, was replaced by Renart, but La Fontaine uses the modern spelling: renard. Now, if the fox lost his name goupil to become Renart, the Roman de Renart may also have influenced the English language.

Given the popularity and wide dissemination of Reynard the Fox, crediting a linguistic element to Reynard the Fox makes sense. In fact, crediting a linguistic element to a popular fable often makes sense. These stories were in circulation. Persons who could not read were told about Reynard, just as they were told Jacobus de Voragine‘s Golden Legend.

The Roman de Renart as a satire

According to Wikipedia,

“Ysengrimus is usually held to be an allegory for the corrupt monks of the Roman Catholic Church. His [Ysengrimus’] greed is what typically causes him to be led astray. He is made to make statements such as “commit whatever sins you please; you will be absolved if you can pay.”[4] 

One could buy indulgences and do penance in purgatory:

“purgatory, the condition, process, or place of purification or temporary punishment in which, according to medieval Christian and Roman Catholic belief, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for heaven.”[5]

Obviously, the Roman de Renart was not written for children, but there are children’s adaptations of its many tales. In such versions, Renart does not rape Dame Hersent and when the wolf loses his tail to escape “vilains” who will kill him, he feels no pain. The Roman de Renart includes the tail-fisher motif (ATU  2; Perry Index 17 and (“The Fox with the Swollen Belly”) (Perry Index number 24). (See RELATED ARTICLES)

—ooo—

Conclusion

ATU 2: The Tail-Fisher (Aarne-Thompson-Üther classification system)
Perry Index 17 (“The Fox without a Tail”)
Perry Index 24 (“The Fox with the Swollen Belly”)
 

In A. A. Milne‘s[6] Winnie-the-Pooh, Eeyore loses a tail, which may remind one of the Tail-Fisher (ATU 2), but the tail is not severed or caught in the ice. The tail is lost but will be found. As for Bruin the bear’s nose, it will grow back.

Such is not the case with the Æsopic fox or La Fontaine “Renard ayant la queue coupée.” Besides, Bruin’s nose is caught just as Ysengrin’s tail is caught in the ice which forces him to lose it in order to survive.

There are differences between ATU 2 and our Æsopic fables as well as similarities. But what is fascinating is that Bruin’s sad encounter with Renart and Lanfroi the forester may have helped shape the English language: “It’s no skin off my nose.”

Let this be our conclusion.

Wishing all of you a good week.

Winnie-the-Pooh

Winnie-the-Pooh

RELATED ARTICLES

  • The Cat’s only Trick (10 May 2013)
  • How Eeyore loses a Tail, Painlessly and Perhaps Beautifully (5 May 2013)
  • More on the Tail-Fisher (1 May 2013)
  • Another Motif: The Tail-Fisher (29 April 2013)
  • A Motif: Getting Stuck in a Hole (16 April 2013)
  • The Velveteen Rabbit & Animism (30 April 2012)
  • Another Motif: Playing Dead (20 April 2012)
  • The Topsy-Turvy World of Beast Literature (31 October 2011)
  • Reynard the Fox: the Judgement (25 October 2011)
  • Reynard the Fox: the Itinerant (23 October 2011)

Sources and Resources

  • Le Roman de Renart (BnF) (full text in FR)
  • Caxton’s A History of Reynard the Fox can be read online
  • The Tail-Fisher is ATU type 2
  • (“The Fox without a Tail”) Perry Index 17
  • (“The Fox with the Swollen Belly”) Perry Index 24

____________________

[1] Jean Dufournet & Andrée Méline (traduction) et Jean Dufournet (introduction), Le Roman de Renart (Paris: GF Flammarion, 1985), pp 72-79.

[2] Jean Subrenat, “Rape and Adultery: Reflected Facets of Feudal Justice in the Roman de Renart,” in Kenneth Varty, ed. Reynard the Fox: Social Engagement and Cultural Metamorphoses in the Beast Epic from the Middle Ages to the Present (New York & Oxford: Berghahn, 2000), pp. 16-35.

[3] Jill Mann “The Satiric Vision of the Ysengrimus,” in Kenneth Varty, ed. op. cit, pp. 1-15.

[4] Ysengrimus, Wikipedia – the free encyclopedia.

[5] “purgatory”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 04 oct.. 2014
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/483923/purgatory>.

[6] “A. A. Milne”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 05 oct.. 2014 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/383024/AA-Milne>.

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© Micheline Walker
5 October 2014
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