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Critical Essay by Rupert T. Pickens
SOURCE: "'Equitan': Anti-'Guigemar'," in Romance Notes, Vol. XV, No. 2, Winter, 1973, pp. 361-67.
In the following excerpt, Pickens compares "Equitan" to the lai "Guigemar" and defends "Equitan" against those critics who call it an inferior lai.
No other lai of Marie de France has suffered more at the hands of critics than "Equitan" To Hoepffner it is nothing more than "un médiocre fait-divers sans grandeur qui fournirait plutôt matière à un fabliau ou à un conte drôlatique qu'à un de ces contes sentimentaux qui sont dans la manière de notre poétesse" [Ernest Hoepffner, Les Lais de Marie de France, n.d.]. Without its love casuistry, according to Moshé Lazar, '"Equitan"' n'aurait été qu'un fabliau de peu d'intérêt." [Amour courtois et fin'amors dans la littérature du XIIe siècle, 1964]. And Jeanne Wathelet-Willem wonders if such an embarrassing work can really be by Marie de France, though she finally concludes that, despite...
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This section contains 2,463 words (approx. 9 pages at 300 words per page) |
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