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"Aymeri of Narbonne" tells the story of Aymeri, son of one of
Charlemagne's paladins, who alone accepts the great emperor's
challenge to reconquer Narbonne in Languedoc from the Saracens.
Epic siege and battle, betrayal, and acts of individual heroism
evoke all the elements of the great age of French chanson de geste
epitomized in the Song of Roland. Unlike Roland and many of its
imitators - tales that breathe the air of military culture and the
crusade - Aymeri of Narbonne takes a step forward, toward the age
of the Romance, with a second plot that is no less important than
great battles and Christian-Moslem conflict. Aymeri is advised by
his court that he must seek and marry a noble princess. His quest
eventually takes him across the Alps to Pavia, there to meet and
woo Hermenjart, princess of Lombardy. On the way, the heroic epic
takes a detour into the realm of self-discovery and social satire:
of Italian merchants and German knights, and French obtuseness to
the rules of courtly behavior and of civil life. But the real focus
of the tale soon turns to the lovely - and courageous - Hermenjart.
No passive object of desire or chivalric quest, the princess of
Pavia becomes a character every bit as dynamic as her male suitor
and his companions. Forthright about the status and prospects of a
woman in "chivalrous" France, she long refuses many suitors and
only welcomes Aymeri's advances when she is convinced of his
sincere respect and love - and her own status. The couple goes on
to high adventure and a long, triumphant life. This first English
translation, by Michael A.H. Newth, employs a strict but natural
verse. His introduction gives the tale its historical context and
offers a solid review of its antecedents, authorship, genre and
poetics. Newth also addresses the Crusade and Christian-Moslem
relations, the problem of the "other" in medieval literature,
gender roles and the continuing relevance of the chansons. Includes
introduction, notes, bibliography.
"Lavin's study of the Pierro della Francesca "Flagellation" at
Urbino, as befits this exquisite masterpiece, is a model of lucid
and precise exposition as well as being an exciting exercise of
scholarship. Informed with the intellectual rigour of Scholastic
exegesis, it deserves to be placed with the classic readings of
fifteenth and sixteenth century works by Erwin Panofsky and Edgar
Wind."--"Spectator
"[Lavin] leaves the picture more wondrous than before, a
simultaneous triumph of the theological and biographical, as well
as pictorial, imagination."--Rackstraw Downes, "New York Times Book
Review
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