• Aboriginals in North America
  • Beast Literature
  • Canadiana.1
  • Dances & Music
  • Fables and Fairy Tales
  • Fables by Jean de La Fontaine
  • Feasts & Liturgy
  • Great Books Online
  • La Princesse de Clèves
  • Middle East
  • Molière
  • Nominations
  • Posts on Love Celebrated
  • Posts on the United States
  • The Art and Music of Russia
  • The French Revolution & Napoleon Bonaparte
  • Ukraine
  • Voyageurs Posts
  • Canadiana.2

Micheline's Blog

~ Art, music, books, history & current events

Micheline's Blog

Tag Archives: Reynard

Reynard the Fox: Motifs

02 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by michelinewalker in Beast Literature, classification, motif

≈ Comments Off on Reynard the Fox: Motifs

Tags

Antti Aarne, Germaine de Staël, Le Roman de Renart, motifs [folkloristics], Nationalism, Reynard, Stith Thompson, the Trickster

http://classes.bnf.fr/renart/it/episodes/08.htm

150504_r26458-320

“Reynard” is a defining document of a vast tradition in Western art: the trickster story. Art and Picture Collection / The New York Public Library

You may wish to read Renart’s story in this fine article published by The New Yorker. Spelling Renart with a “d” is perfectly acceptable.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/04/fox-news

Classification

  • Antti Aarne
  • Stith Thompson (AT)
  • Hans-Georg Üther (ATU)

Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne  (5 December 1867 Pori – 2 February 1925 Helsinki)  was the first scholar to classify folktales. In the 19th century, an interest in folklore had developed. The search for folktales was in fact initiated by the Brothers Grimm who travelled throughout German-language states and collected its folklore. Germany had yet to be unified and folktales were seen as an expression of nationality and an element that could lead to nationhood. Nationalism is an ideology that dominated 19th-century Europe and it is associated with the development of folkloristics.

Prussian leader Otto von Bismarck “engineered a series of wars that unified the German states,” but he excluded Austria (see Otto von Bismarck, Wikipedia). In the early years of the 19th century, Madame de Staël had written De l’Allemagne, in which she described the people of German-language states. Germaine de Staël’s effort and enthusiasm were considerable encouragement to the Brothers Grimm.

In short, as nationalism developed, so did an interest in folklore: folktales in particular, which may explain why Antti Aarne’s started to classify folktales. He would be joined by American Stith Thompson (7 March 1885 – 10 January 1976). The Aarne-Thompson catalog was published in 1910 and was named the Motif-Index of Folk-Literature but, as Aarne-Thompson’s classification evolved, indexical units larger than motifs were used. Scholar Hans-Georg Üther refined Aarne-Thompson’s classification which is now entitled the Aarne-Thompson-Üther Classification Systems or Multilingual Folktale Database. However, motifs exist (see Motif [folkloristics]), as do narremes, the smallest meaningful units in a narrative (see Vladimir Propp, Wikipedia).

Three Motifs in Reynard the Fox

If you have read A. A. Milne‘s Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), you may remember that the little bear enters a house through an opening, but cannot get out through the same opening because he has eaten too much honey. We are entering the world of motifs. The Perry Index of Æsopic fables lists The Fox and the Weasle (24), La Fontaine’s “La Belette entrée dans un grenier” (The Weasel in a Granary) (III.17). In this fable, the Belette is too fat to leave the granary the way she entered it. As we have seen, Finnish scholar Antti Aarne‘s first classification of folktales was a motif-index.

1.

The tail fisher or severed tail

Le Roman de Renart/Aventure 9 – Wikisource (Fishing for eels through the ice)
Où l’on verra comment Renart conduisit son compère à la pêche aux anguilles.
https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Le_Roman_de_Renart/Aventure_9

Persuading Ysengrimus, the wolf, to fish with his tale hanging down a hole in the ice is one of Reinardus’ worse tricks. The ice hardens and Ysengrimus’ tale is caught. He loses it when he must escape the villains and dogs who are approaching. In the Ysengrimus, the wolf fishes with his tail, down a hole in the ice. Eventually, his tail gets caught in the ice and he loses it trying to escape from villains and dogs.

Jean de La Fontaine, also told the sorry fate of a tailless fox in a fable entitled “Le Renart ayant la queue coupée,” The Fox with his Tail cut off (1.V.5). This tailless fox tries to persuade foxes in council to part with their own tail. He is asked to turn around so they can see what to expect. His mutilated body is repulsive, which could explain why foxes still have a tail. (Tailless Fox Tries in Vain to Get Foxes to Cut off Tails, ATU 64.)

We have also read a Cherokee fable entitled “How the Bear Lost its Tail,” a Cherokee Fable (4 August 2015). Recurrence is a precious tool in literary criticism. (How the bear lost his tail, ATU 2.)

2.

GETTING CAUGHT IN A HOLE

When Ysengrin is away being turned into a monk, Renart rapes Hersent, the wolf Isengrin’s wife, when she is caught in a hole or aperture. Noble, the king, sends ambassadors to Maupertuis, Renart’s domain, but the fox plays tricks. For instance, Renart asks Brun / Bruin the bear to put his nose in a slit in a log claiming that Brun will find honey inside. Renart then removes the wedges holding the slit open. Villagers are converging so, in order to escape, Bruin loses the skin off his nose, which he would rather do than lose his life. He returns to court. Wedges can be called coins. When one is stuck, one is coincé. The English idiom “it’s no skin off my nose,” might find its source in this episode.

Le Roman de Renart/Aventure 41 – Wikisource (Bruin’s nose gets wedged in)
De l’arrivée de damp Brun à Maupertuis, et comment il ne trouva pas doux le miel que Renart lui fit goûter.
https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Le_Roman_de_Renart/Aventure_41

However, the main narrative is the rape of Hersent, Isengrin’s wife, and the trial that ensues. (Reynard the bear at court, ATU 53)

3.

Reynard’s plea: feigned devotion (the faux dévot)

Le Roman de Renart/Aventure 55 – Wikisource (Renart talks himself out of a death sentence)
Comment Renart fut, par jugement des Pairs, condamné à être pendu. Comment il ne le fut pas, et comment il rentra dans Maupertuis.
https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Le_Roman_de_Renart/Aventure_41

Comments

Reynard the Fox played a role in the development of European jurisprudence. Reynard the Fox is also associated with Machiavelli‘s Prince. If the end, which may be survival, justifies the means, one lies, rapes and murders. Renart feigns devotion. He is an ancestor to Molière’s Tartuffe, the ultimate casuiste, and has also been identified with Molière’s Dom Juan. The manner in which he talks himself out of a death sentence is pure hypocrisy, but it is also the plea of a brilliant lawyer. Before, he is hanged, the fox must atone. He resembles the fox in the Sick Lion tale who has also been on a pilgrimage, which explains his tardy arrival at the Lion’s court, Noble’s court.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Reynard the Fox, the Trickster (22 October 2011)
  • Reynard the fox, the Itinerant (23 October 2011)
  • Reynard the Fox, the Judgement (25 October 2011)
  • It’s no skin off my nose (6 October 2014)

Sources and Resources

  • List of Literary Cycles Wikipedia
  • Le Roman de Renart is a Wikisource publication FR
  • Multilingual Folktale Database (ATU)
  • How the bear lost his tail (ATU 2)
  • The bear and the honey (ATU 49)
  • Reynard the bear at court (ATU 53)
  • Tailless Fox Tries in Vain to Get Foxes to Cut off Tails (ATU 64)
  • Joan Acocella, “Fox News: What the stories of Reynard tell us about ourselves,” The New Yorker (4 May 2015)
This post is the second of two posts on Reynard the Fox. Given its subject matter, motifs, it can be published independently of the first post. Should you need further information, please use Joan Acocella’s article on Reynard the Fox. One cannot do better. The link to her article is immediately above this note.

Love to everyone ♥

Micheline Walker
2 April 2017
WordPress

 

Micheline's Blog

  • Print
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Micheline Bourbeau-Walker: Publications

02 Thursday May 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Literature, Sharing

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

France, Ghent, Lead glass, Micheline Bourbeau-Walker, Misanthrope, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Publications, Reynard, Thesis

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir  (1841–1919)
Photo credit: Google (2)
 
RELATED ARTICLE
  • From House to House (michelinewalker.com) 

PUBLICATIONS:

Articles :
2002.
« La Patrie littéraire : errance et résistance », Francophonies d’Amérique.
http://www.erudit.org/revue/fa/2002/v/n13/1005247ar.pdf
 
1998.
« Le Récit d’Acadie : présence d’une absence »,  in Les Abeilles pillotent, 255-275. Université Saint-Anne, Pointe-de-l’Église, Nouvelle-Écosse, .
 
1988. 
« Le Misanthrope, ou la comédie éclatée »,  in David Trott and Nicole Boursier, eds., L’Âge du théâtre en France/ The Age of Theatre in France, 53-61. Edmonton: Academic Printing and Publishing.
 
1984. 
« L’Échec d’Arnolphe : loi du genre ou faille intérieure? » Papers on French Seventeenth-Century Literature, 11, No. 20: 79-92.
 
1984.                
« Le Poids de l’histoire : à la recherche d’une pédagogie. »  The Canadian Modern Language Review/La Revue canadienne des langues vivantes, 40, No. 2: 218-227. 
Rpt. in Mosaïque (APFUCC [Association of Canadian University and College Teachers of French], 1984).
Rpt. in Courrier “F” (Ghent, Belgium : Société belge des professeurs de français 2e et 3e langue, 1985).
 
1981.
« Tartuffe : masques, machines et machinations. »  In Actes du XXIVe congrès annuel de l’APFUCC, 491-508.  APFUCC/Signum, 1981.     
 
Edited Books :
 
1988. 
Mosaïque III : tendances et pratiques actuelles en didactique du français langue seconde.  APFUCC. 
1986. 
Mosaïque II : tendances et pratiques actuelles en didactique du français langue seconde.  APFUCC.
1984. 
Mosaïque : tendances et pratiques actuelles en didactique du français langue seconde.  APFUCC.
 
Edited Section of Journal:
 
1984.  
« Molière et la nouvelle critique. »  In Papers on French Seventeenth-Century Literature, 11, No. 20: 11-92.
 
Lectures:
 
2001.
 
« Renart : éloquence d’un silence, silence d’une éloquence. »
2001 meeting of the International Reynard Society, Hull, England.
 
2001.
French-Canadian Literature (in French), University of Stuttgart, Germany.
English-Canadian Literature (in English), University of Stuffgart, Germany. 
_________________________
 
“Sous les ponts de Paris”
Lucienne Delyle
 
 
A Bouquet of Roses, by Renoir

A Bouquet of Roses, by Renoir

© Micheline Walker
2 April 2013
WordPress
 
 

Micheline's Blog

  • Print
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

More on the Tail-Fisher

01 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, United States

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Acadian, Évangéline, Cajuns, Deportation of Acadians, Georgia, Gregg Howard, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Pourquoi tales, Reynard, Tail-fisher, Thirteen Colonies, Uncle Remus

How the Rabbit lost His Tail

Photo credit: Google

RELATED ARTICLES:

  • Another Motif: The Tail-Fisher (michelinewalker.com)
  • Reynard the Fox, the Itinerant (michelinewalker.com)
  • Évangéline & the “literary homeland” (michelinewalker.com)
  • Évangéline & the “literary homeland” (cont’d) (michelinewalker.com)
  • Uncle Remus & Tar-Baby (michelinewalker.com)

In a post published in 2011, I traced Reynard the Fox’s steps from various European countries to Georgia, US, where he is featured in Joel Chandler Harris‘ (9 December 1848 – 3 July 1908)[i] Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings: The Folk-Lore of the Old Plantation.  It would be my opinion that deported Acadians told Reynard stories and Æsopic fables to the Black population of Georgia when they were finally allowed to leave the ships in which they sailed down the east coast of the current United States.  With the exception of Georgia, the Thirteen Colonies were not interested in providing a home to Catholics.  Acadians expelled in the second wave of the Grand Dérangement, c. 1857-58, were sent to England and France, but may also have moved to Louisiana.

The expulsion of the Acadians took place during the French and Indian War (1755-1763). British officials posted in Boston deported 11,500 Acadians to prevent this French-speaking population and their Amerindian allies from helping the increasingly dissatisfied citizens of the Thirteen Colonies gain independence from Britain.

Acadians lived in the present day Maritime Provinces of Canada: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.  They also lived in the state of Maine, US.  Many fled to Canada where they lived in “P’tites ‘Cadies” (small Acadies) or were rescued by Amerindians when British soldiers were rounding them up.  Moreover, many of the deportees whose ships sailed down the coast of the eastern US,[ii] found their way back from Georgia to the current Canadian Maritime provinces.[iii]

However, among those who arrived in Georgia, US, a large number travelled to Louisiana, then a French colony, and their descendants are called Cajuns.  These are the Acadians who, in my opinion, told Reynard stories and Æsopic fables to the coloured population of Georgia whose status they shared.  However, in The Tales of Uncle Remus, the trickster ceases to be the fox.  In America, with a few exceptions, the tricksters will be the rabbit (Uncle Remus) and the coyote.  In Uncle Remus, Brer Rabbit is led by Brer Fox into fishing with his tail.  As for our Cherokee tale, told in a video inserted at the bottow of this post, Fox is not only leading the rabbit but trying to play a trick on an American “trickster,” the rabbit.

Old Plantation Play Song, 1881

Old Plantation Play-Song, 1881 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Expulsion of the Acadians WordPress [iii]

Expulsion of the Acadians (Photo credit: Gov. of N.S. & WordPress [iv])

Évangéline, a Tale of Acadie

The deported Acadians were put aboard ships in a pêle-mêle fashion.  Husbands were separated from wives, parents from children and couples from one another.  American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (27 February 1807 – 24 March 1882) immortalized this tragic event in an epic poem entitled Évangéline, published in 1847.  Longfellow‘s poem, Évangéline, a Tale of Acadie is a Gutenberg ebook (number 2039) that one can access by clicking on Évangéline.  Longfellow was motivated to write his Évangéline by American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne (4 July 1804 – 19 May 1864) and he may have been helped by Thomas Chandler Haliburton.

The poem tells the story of a fictional, and now mythic, Évangéline whose family name is Bellefontaine.  She is separated from her betrothed, Gabriel Lajeunesse, during the Great Upheaval (le Grand Dérangement) and spends years looking for him.  She finds him in Philadelphia where, as an old woman, she is working as a Sister of Mercy tending to  the victims of an epidemic.  Her beloved Gabriel dies in her arms.  (See Évangéline, Wikipedia.)

Deportation_of_Acadians_order,_painting_by_JefferysDeportation Order

Charles William Jefferys (25 August 1869 – 8 October 1951)
Photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org 
 

Brer Rabbit replaces Brer Fox as Trickster

But let us now return to Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox.

Interestingly, as mentioned above, the Tales of Uncle Remus include the tail-fisher motif in that a rabbit’s bushy tail is shortened when it gets stuck in the hole through which he is fishing, trying to catch fish, as did Brer Fox.  Although Brer Fox may have intended for Brer Rabbit to lose his tail, in Uncle Remus, the tail-fisher motif is mostly a “pourquoi” tale, the French word for “why.”  Such tales are origin stories or etiological tales.

Joel Chandler Harris devised an eye dialect to represent a Deep South Gullah. To  summarize the story, it tells of Brer (Brother) Rabbit who is.  walking down the road shaking his long, bushy tail when he meets Brer Fox walking along with a string of fish.  They spend time with one another (“wid wunner nudder,”) and Brer Fox says that he got the string of fish at the Baptizing creek.  Brer Fox tells Brer Rabbit that he sat there with his tail in the water and that, in the morning, he discovered he had caught many fish.

“…en drap his tail in de water en set dar twel day-light, en den draw up a whole armful er fishes, en dem w’at he don’t want, he kin fling back.”

(…and dropped his tail in the water and sat there until daylight, and then drew a whole armful of fish, and then those he did not want, he could throw back in the water.)

So Brer Rabbit tries to catch fish in the same manner, but the water freezes and when he tries to pull his tail it is no longer there:  “en lo en beholes, whar wuz his tail?” (and lo and behold, where was his tail?).

“One day Brer Rabbit wuz gwine down de road shakin’ his long, bushy tail, w’en who should he strike up wid but ole Brer Fox gwine amblin’ ’long wid a big string er fish!W’en dey pass de time er day wid wunner nudder, Brer Rabbit, he open up de confab, he did, en he ax Brer Fox whar he git dat nice string er fish, en Brer  Fox, he up’n ’spon’ dat he katch urn, en Brer Rabbit, he say whar’bouts, en Brer  Fox, he say down at de babtizin’ creek, en Brer Rabbit he ax how, kaze in dem days dey wuz monstus fon’ er minners, en Brer Fox, he sot down on a log, he did, en he up’n tell Brer Rabbit dat all he gotter do fer ter git er big mess er minners is ter go ter de creek atter sun down, en drap his tail in de water en set dar twel  day-light, en den draw up a whole armful er fishes, en dem w’at he don’t want, he kin fling back. Right dar’s whar Brer Rabbit drap his watermillion, kaze he tuck’n sot out dat night en went a fishin’. De wedder wuz sorter cole, en Brer Rabbit, he got ’im a bottle er dram en put out fer de creek, en w’en he git dar he pick out a good place, en he sorter squot down, he did, en let his tail hang in de water. He sot dar, en he sot dar, en he drunk his dram, en he think he Gwineter freeze, but bimeby day come, en dar he wuz. He make a pull, en he feel like he comin’ in two, en he fetch Nudder jerk, en lo en beholes, whar wuz his tail?” Chapter XXV 

Conclusion

This particular tale is an example of the tail-fisher motif, Aarne-Thompson: AT type 2.  However, I have also found the tail-fisher motif in a the Cherokee tale, mentioned above and told in the video inserted below.  As is the case in The Tales of Uncle Remus, our Cherokee tale is, first and foremost, an etiological or “pourquoi” tales, rather than a trickster tale but the fox remains the trickster.  However, of particular interest here is that The Tales of Uncle Remus are an American version of the Reynard stories and Æsopic and that they may have been transmitted to the Black population of Georgia, US, by Acadians deported in the first wave of the expulsion, when the ships carrying Acadian deportees sailed down to Georgia.[v]  However, were it not for Joel Chandler Harris, we may never have known why the Black population of Georgia knew about Reynard and various Æsopic tales.

As for our Cherokee tale, it is a Reynard story inasmuch as Fox wants to get back at the Rabbit because the Rabbit is a tricskter.  Moreover, the dramatis personae also includes a Bear, Bruin or Brun, bearing a Cherokee name.  In the Cherokee tale, the Bear helps pull the Rabbit out of the hole in the ice, which is when the Rabbit loses his tail.

It could be, therefore, that the Glooscap myths include one tale about a rabbit who lost its tail.

_________________________

[i] Joel Chandler Harris was an American journalist, fiction writer, and folklorist. (See Joel Chandler Harris, in Wikipedia.)

[ii] To my knowledge, the history of the Expulsion has not been fully investigated.  It would appear that the Acadians were expelled in two waves, rather than all at once, and that some ships sailed towards Europe, to England and France.  Moreover, Paul Mascarène (c. 1684 – 22 January 1760), a descendant of French Huguenots émigrés, may have been among the officers who organized or suggested the Expulsion or Deportation.

[iii] Antonine Maillet’s novel entitled Pélagie-la-Charrette is about Acadians returning to their former territory.

[iv] Canada: Cultures and Colonialism to 1800 (HIST 4508).  WordPress

[v] See Micheline Bourbeau-Walker, « La Patrie littéraire : errance et résistance », Francophonies d’Amérique, <http://www.erudit.org/revue/fa/2002/v/n13/1005247ar.html?vue=resume>.

_________________________

Native American Indian Children’s Stories Storyteller Tales Legends Myths, told by Gregg Howard

Rabbit who loses his tail, Uncle Remus

Rabbit who loses his tail, Uncle Remus

© Micheline Walker
1 May 2013
WordPress 
Photo credit:  Google

Micheline's Blog

  • Print
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Another Motif: Playing Dead

20 Saturday Apr 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Beast Literature, Literature

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Franklin Edgerton, Jill Mann, Laura Gibbs, Middle Ages, Panchatantra, playing-dead motif, Reynard, Roman de Renart

Renart and Tiécelin, the Crow

Renart and Tiécelin the Crow (BnF, Roman de Renart)

  *Photo credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Le Roman de Renart

In branch III of the Roman de Renart, the goupil — foxes used to be called goupils — Renart is hungry and goes in search of food.  When he gets to the road, he sees a cart loaded with fish and quickly lies across the road making believe he has died.  The merchant stops his cart and investigates.  He looks at Renart’s magnificent fur and as a merchant he wonders if there isn’t money to be made from the sale of the fur.  He throws Renart at the back of the cart, which is precisely what Renart wanted him to do.  Our trickster fox therefore feasts on the herrings (les harengs).  Having satisfied his hunger, Renart wraps himself into a coat made of eels and jumps off the cart.  As he runs away, he shouts “bless you” to the merchant, “there I am with plenty of eels to eat, you can keep the rest!”

Renart et les anguilles (eels) is one of the best known of Renart’s tricks, except that this time he doesn’t take advantage of the wolf Ysengrin (French spelling), the chief character in Nivardus of Ghent’s Ysengrimus (c. 1149).  Besides, the fox is not speaking Latin but Roman (le roman).

Renart et les anguilles

Renart et les anguilles (the eels) (BnF, Roman de Renart)

The Theft of Fish

Renart et les anguilles (br. III) is classified as motif 1 in the Aarne Thompson (AT) motif index,[i] where it is listed as The theft of fish. The getting-stuck-in-a-hole is motif 50 in the Aarne-Thompson Classification and is called Curing a sick lion. The bear and the honey is motif 49 except that the Roman de Renart’s Brun (Bruin) the bear gets stuck (coincé) in a log and not in a hole.[ii]

the Fox Who Played Dead: Æsop, Abstemius and Renart the Fox

Dr Laura Gibbs[iii] tells us about a fable entitled The Dog and the Fox who Played Dead by Æsop, but based on Abstemius (149). A fox played dead so he could catch birds. The fox “rolled in the mud and stretched out in a field.” However, a dog comes by and mangles the fox, which puts an end to the otherwise deadly ruse.

In the Roman de Renart, the fox entices Tiécelin, the corbeau (the crow), to sing and thus lose the cheese he has stolen. However, before taking the cheese, the fox makes believe he is wounded and when he tries to eat Tiécelin, all he succeeds in grabbing are a few feathers. Both stories are identical except for the presence of a dog in Æsop and Abstemius.

Comments

So, in Æsop the make-believe is stopped by a dog, but the in the Roman de Renart, the make-believe is not carried out to the point of playing dead. However, Tiécelin has a name which suggests that he is a human in disguise, the chief device of animals in literature. In both fables, the fox says he fully deserves to have lost the bird, and the cheese. In Laura Gibbs’ version of The Dog and the Fox who Played Dead, the fox says “This is just what I deserve: while I was trying to catch the birds using my tricks, someone else has caught me.” The same is true of Renart. One has the impression that the fox knows how clever he is and that he can therefore afford to lose.

In the Medieval Bestiary, we read that

“the fox is a crafty and deceitful animal that never runs in a straight line, but only in circles. When it wants to catch birds to eat, the fox rolls in red mud so that it appears to be covered in blood. It then lies apparently lifeless; birds, deceived by the appearance of blood and thinking the fox to be dead, land on it and are immediately devoured.The most famous fox of the Middle Ages was Reynard, the trickster hero of the Romance of Reynard the Fox.”

In fact,

[t]he fox represents the devil, who pretends to be dead to those who retain their worldly ways, and only reveals himself when he has them in his jaws. To those with perfect faith, the devil is truly dead.

Playing dead (faire le mort) is a common ruse illustrated here using two examples from the Roman de Renart and a closely related example from Æsop. If we were to trace back Renart’s ruses, they would take us to the Pañcatantra. The structure of the Roman de Renart is a frame story, stories within a story, which is also the case with the Sanskrit Pañcatantraand its Arabic rendition, Ibn al Muqaffa’s Kalīlah wa-Dimnah.

However, the Roman de Renart is a fabliau.  The Pañcatantra and Kalīlah wa-Dimnah do not possess the scurrilous and at times scatological aspect of French fabliaux.[iv]  Moreover, if ancient beast epics and fables are used in the education of the prince, it would seem our ancient prince did not live in the albeit comical but ruthless world, the various European countries Reynard the Fox inhabits. We accept his cruel misdeeds because his tricks do not seem to hurt.One is reminded of the comic strips steamroller flattening a cat who always fluffs up again. I am using a comparison taken from Jill Mann[v] in Kenneth Varty,[vi] ed. Introduction, Reynard the Fox: Social Engagement and Cultural Metamorphoses in the Beast Epic from the Middle Ages to the Present (New York & Oxford: Bergham Books, 2000).

Conclusion

The comic text is a “self-redeeming” (the term is mine) by virtue of a powerful convention, the “all’s well that ends well.” But beast epics and fables are also a nītiśāstra. In other words, they are, by vocation and convention, cushioned advice for the “wise” conduct of a prince’s life. According to Franklin Edgerton (1924), “[t]he so-called ‘morals’ of the stories have no bearing on morality; they are unmoral, and often immoral. They glorify shrewdness and practical wisdom, in the affairs of life, and especially of politics, of government.”[vii] As I indicated in an earlier post, Edgerton may be a little severe regarding the morality of the Panchatantra, but, were we to apply his comments to Reynard the Fox, they would not be altogether inappropriate. Renart is a scoundrel.

In closing, I will also point out that the playing-dead motif is particularly important in that playing dead is a real-life option. This particular motif is very much about the “wise” conduct of a prince. For instance, laying low while the country regrouped probably came to the mind of American leaders on 9/11.

Fortunately, when all is said and done, a fox is a fox is a fox.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Reynard the Fox, the Itinerant (michelinewalker.com)
  • “To Inform or Delight” (michelinewalker.com)
  • A Motif: Getting Stuck in a Hole (michelinewalker.com)
_________________________
[i] Aarne-Thompson Motif-Index
http://scandinavian.wisc.edu/mellor/taleballad/pdf_files/motif_types.pdf
[ii] Also see: Aarne-Thompson Classification System
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aarne%E2%80%93Thompson_classification_system#Animal_tales
and Flokloristics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folkloristics
[iii] Laura Gibbs is the author of Aesop’s Fables, Aesop’s Fables in Latin, Mille Fabulae et Una, Latin Via Proverbs, Vulgate Verses, and Roman Sudoku.
[iv] With respect to fabliaux, you may wish to look at the Geoffrey Chaucer site.
http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/litsubs/fabliaux/
Also see: Jill Mann, Feminizing Chaucer, Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 2002.
[v] Jill Mann, The Satiric Fiction of the Ysengrimus, in Varty, p. 1.  Jill Mann has translated into English Nivardus of Ghent’s entire Ysengrimus.
[vi] Kenneth Varty, ed. Introduction, Reynard the Fox: Social Engagement and Cultural Metamorphoses in the Beast Epic from the Middle Ages to the Present (New York & Oxford: Bergham Books, 2000).
[vii] (George Allen and Unwin, London 1965 [1924]) p. 13.  Edgerton’s edition and translation of the Panchatantra is an “Edition for the General Reader.” (Quoted in Wikipedia’s Panchatantra entry.)
Reineke Fuchs

Reineke Fuchs

© Micheline Walker
19 April 2013
WordPress

Micheline's Blog

  • Print
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Europa

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,469 other followers

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Categories

Recent Posts

  • The Decline of Kievan Rus’
  • Ilya Repin, Ivan IV and his son Ivan on 16 November 1581, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
  • Ukraine’s Varangian Princes, its Primary Chronicle, the Russkaya Pravda …
  • Bohdan Khmelnytsky, a Cossack Hetman
  • Ruthenia vs Ukraine
  • Ukraine: … a Genocide?
  • A Brief Disappearance
  • Ukraine: the Battle of Poltava
  • The War in Ukraine: la petite Russie
  • The Art and Music of Russia

Archives

Calendar

May 2022
M T W T F S S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031  
« Apr    

Social

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • WordPress.org

micheline.walker@videotron.ca

Micheline Walker

Micheline Walker

Social

Social

  • View belaud44’s profile on Facebook
  • View Follow @mouchette_02’s profile on Twitter
  • View Micheline Walker’s profile on LinkedIn
  • View belaud44’s profile on YouTube
  • View Miicheline Walker’s profile on Google+
  • View michelinewalker’s profile on WordPress.org

Micheline Walker

Micheline Walker
Follow Micheline's Blog on WordPress.com

A WordPress.com Website.

  • Follow Following
    • Micheline's Blog
    • Join 2,469 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Micheline's Blog
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: