Join us for this week’s CuSPP seminar:

Thursday 8 August, 1pm, Milgate Room, AD Hope Bldg, SLLL

Vegetal enclosure inviting to meditation, idyllic framework for political reflection or locus amoenus for lover’s rendez-vous in Old French poetry and romance: the garden reveals its high and flexible potential in Medieval literature. Do we remember that the epic Song of Roland (ca. 1100) settles the first of its dramatic scenes in two orchards? As a green theatre, the mighty trees of in Beroul’s Tristan and Isold witness an interesting double play, becoming both a lookout and a trap for the lovers’ enemies. Other novels, such as Chretien of Troyes’ Erec and Enide or Cligès consolidate the lacy features of branches by constructing hidden playgrounds for either chivalry combat or secret lovers. Of course, the first garden exposed on a French stage is Eden, since the first religious play in this language is the Jeu d’Adam, that already knows how useful special effects are…

Our walk through these medieval gardens will discuss the close interaction of Nature and Human culture, and investigate on the patterns that the diverse genres of Old French literature will display when setting up the green scenery.

Beate Langenbruch is a German researcher, Associate Professor at ENS de Lyon in France, and member of the CIHAM research group (UMR 5648) on history, archeology and literature in the Middle Ages. As a specialist for French medieval texts, she investigates in particular on Old French Epics. Other fields of interest and research are réécriture of medieval texts, their literary genre, medieval gender studies, translation studies and cultural transfers.