SOURCE: “Torelore in Aucassin et Nicolette,” in Romance Notes, Vol. 11, No. 3, Spring, 1970, pp. 656-65.

In the essay that follows, Clevenger avers that the episode of Aucassin et Nicolette which takes place in the land of Torelore reveals the parodic nature of the work and emphasizes the writer's implicit assertion that the world and its laws and habits is the story's true antagonist.

The plot of the thirteenth-century chantefable, Aucassin et Nicolette, is quite simple. Aucassin, son and heir to Count Garin of Beaucaire, loves Nicolette, a Saracen slave purchased and then “adopted” by the Viscount of that same Beaucaire. The remainder of the story consists of one separation after another as the lovers flee their persecutors. During their travels they reach the inverted kingdom of Torelore, a country where the king is lying in childbed, the queen is leading the troops into battle, and the battle is being...