Little is known about Alain Chartier's early life save that he was born in Bayeux into a bourgeois family prominent in the town's affairs, and that he studied at the University of Paris; the date of his birth is not known, nor the year in which he...

(ca. 1385-ca. 1430). Author and diplomat, known chiefly for his controversial poem, the Belle dame sans merci, and for his talent as an orator. A native of Bayeux, Alain Chartier studied at the University of Paris, earning the title of...

Medieval 16th century · 17th century 18th century · 19th century 20th century ·...

Alain Chartier (c. 1385-1430) is among the most important writers of fifteenth-century France. He is best known today for the Belle Dame sans mercy, a poem that touched off an astonishing flurry of responses, continuations, and imitations in the decades that followed. (1)...

Within the community formed by the forty manuscripts which collect the numerous sequels and imitations of Alain Chartier's controversial poem La Belle Dame sans mercy of 1424 are contained a number of other texts that have close semantic and conceptual links with the...

In the following essay, Hoffman offers a critical overview of Chartier's prose works, providing an analysis of his reputation among critics, comparisons to other writers, and an assessment of his influence.

In the excerpt that follows, Hult asserts that in Belle Dame sans mercy Chartier uses the techniques of allegory to construct a critique of the form itself and its interpretation.

In the following essay, Giannasi refutes biographical interpretations of La Belle Dame sans mercy that see Chartier as the poem's narrator. The narrator, he argues, functions as both the teller of a story of a lady's cruelty and the protagonist who dies as a result of her disdain.