SOURCE: “Aucassin,” in Love's Fools: Aucassin, Troilus, Calisto, and the Parody of the Courtly Lover, Tamesis Books Limited, 1972, pp. 23-36.

In the following essay, Martin argues that the parody of Aucassin as a courtly lover in Aucassin et Nicolette is the element that unifies the various episodes in the tale.

While almost all medieval literature is the object of far too little study, the thirteenth-century chantefable, Aucassin et Nicolette, is even more critically impoverished than most. Until fairly recently, scholars who had given attention to the text had concentrated primarily on certain linguistic difficulties, disputed readings of various lines or, at best, examinations of single motifs. In the past two decades, however, critics have begun to consider the text as a whole, and their investigations have led to a general agreement that Aucassin et Nicolette is not the sweet and simple tale it was once thought to be...