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La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Excerpt from La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Si l'on s'en rapporte aux recherches de M. G. Du Fresne de Beaucourt, membre de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, Alain serait né en 1393 (guillaume en 1392) il aurait donc eu quarante  cinq ans en 1438. C'était la jeunesse encore pour un homme actif comme notre poète  ambassadeur, et, une certaine coquetterie inhérente à la nature humaine aidant, il a pu se plaindre dans l'inaction fastidieuse que lui impo sait sa disgrâce de.
Si l'on s'en rapporte aux recherches de M. G. Du Fresne de Beaucourt, membre de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, Alain serait né en 1393 (guillaume en 1392) il aurait donc eu quarante  cinq ans en 1438. C'était la jeunesse encore pour un homme actif comme notre poète  ambassadeur, et, une certaine coquetterie inhérente à la nature humaine aidant, il a pu se plaindre dans l'inaction fastidieuse que lui impo sait sa disgrâce de.
103 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1949
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May 7, 2025
Alain Chartier’s La Belle Dame sans mercy is one of the best-known poems of the late Middle Ages in France. It gave rise to a number of continuations and replies (referred to collectively as the Querelle de La Belle Dame sans mercy) and remained popular longer than most other poetry of the period; along with the Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun’s massive Roman de la Rose it was read up until the Renaissance reached France. Chartier’s poem is much shorter, about fifty pages in the (1901) edition I read. (The first half of the book is an introduction by the editor, Lucien Charpennes, which discusses the poet’s life, arguing that after having been a high official of the King for a time he was in disgrace up until about the time this was written – something that I have not seen any evidence for in anything else I have read about him; he was of course in exile with the court of the Dauphin during the war with Henry V and Burgundy – and his other works, both poetry and prose in both Latin and French.)
After a short prologue, the poem is a debate between a lover and his maistresse; his part of the debate is a fairly normal example of courtly love poetry, similar to what I read last month by Guillaume de Machaut, professing his service to the lady, but hers is quite outside the norm for mediaeval poetry. She basically considers this rather pathetic lover to just be annoying, and tells him essentially to get over her, she doesn’t believe his verbal claims and in any case doesn’t recognize his service as obliging her in any way. Charpennes describes the poem as “feminist”.
The book also includes the Excusation, Chartier’s defense of the poem which hardly seems convincing or even sincerely meant.
After a short prologue, the poem is a debate between a lover and his maistresse; his part of the debate is a fairly normal example of courtly love poetry, similar to what I read last month by Guillaume de Machaut, professing his service to the lady, but hers is quite outside the norm for mediaeval poetry. She basically considers this rather pathetic lover to just be annoying, and tells him essentially to get over her, she doesn’t believe his verbal claims and in any case doesn’t recognize his service as obliging her in any way. Charpennes describes the poem as “feminist”.
The book also includes the Excusation, Chartier’s defense of the poem which hardly seems convincing or even sincerely meant.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review