CHAPTER VII POPULAR POETRY: THE ROMAN DU RENART THE greatest poetic effort of the Middle Ages was, perhaps, during the period which gave us the Animal-Epic Literature, the chief figure in which is Master Renard, about whom, with his comrades, there are innumerable poems. In these poems we meet with animals having the characters of human beings, and their own special names, different from those by which they are ordinarily known. Thus, Renard is a proper name, and the animal whom we call "Renard" (the fox) was known in the Middle Ages as "Gorpil." But the works in which the fox (the "Gorpil") figures under his dramatic name have rendered that name so famous that it has taken the place of the old and correct title, and these narratives of the Gorpil and the other creatures have become known as the "Renard" poems. In all of them certain animals appear with individual names; there is the Gorpil under the name of "Renart"; the Wolf under the name of "Ysengrin"; the Lion under the name of "Noble"; the Bear under the name of "Brun"; the Cock under the name of "Chantecler "; the Leopard under the name of "Firapel"; the Stag under the name of "Brichemer"; the Ass under the name of "Bernart"; the Snail under the name of "Tardif"; the Cat under the name of "Tybert"; the Kite under the name of "Escoffie"; the Badger under the name of "Grimbert"; the Monkey under the name of "Cointériaux"; the Raven under the name of "Tiercelin"; the Sheep under the name of "Bélin," and SO on. The sources of this animal-epic -the creation of the popular imagination-are still very ROMAN DU RENART 61 obscure the word Renart would appear to be of German origin (from "reinhard"), but the ancient "fables" and all ancient literatures have made use of animals as dramatic persons, with the names of men, and the "Renart " Cycle is only a series of "fables" which were developed and prolonged in accordance with the taste of a period which revelled in prolixity. The very first appearance of a story of the celebrated "Renart" type seems to have been in the twelfth century, in a Latin poem entitled "Isengrinus." The oldest text in a modern language is one written in French in the twelfth century. The oldest German texts give to the animals names which are obviously French, such as Chantecler, Brun, Bélin, and so on. The "Renart" classics are to be found in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, more especially in the thirteenth. The principal characteristic of these legends is the constant mingling deliberately carried out to a far greater degree than in La Fontaine-of the beast and the man. In the "Renart " stories the creatures wear the clothes of men, live in the abodes of men, and make use of the weapons, the tools, the household utensils of men, and almost, indeed, of his toilet accessories. It must be admitted that the authors of these stories constantly forget that they are treating of animals; only now and again does some detail of animal-life come in, as though quite inadvertently, and this creates a contrast which gives a burlesque or comic effect to the narrative. It is just the reverse in the pages of La Fontaine with him, whatever may be said, we are dealing all the time with the beasts, and now and again some vivid detail reminds us that the author is also thinking about men. In the "Renart" legends, on the contrary, we are dealing with human beings, and only at rare intervals does some incident recall to us that these beings are in the guise of beasts. This only serves to make us realise more clearly that the Middle Ages had no feeling for Nature, and were forced to confine themselves to the delineation of mankind. The dominating idea in these narratives is the constant tendency to depict the skill, the craft, and the intrigue of Phar! the weak, which ultimately render him far superior to the strong; thus it is that Master Renart is represented as the hero of the whole beast epic. The lion, the bear, and the wolf are all strong creatures, but Renart possesses wit and craft, and so the lion is fooled by him, the bear is duped by him, and the wolf, especially, is made game of by him. This is the conclusion always reached in the Renart poems, and it is the invariable central idea. This creation of the popular or bourgeois spirit, showing the malice and anger of the man who was partly a bourgeois, partly a serf, against the great seigneur, the warrior, or the country squire, gives proof in hundreds of versions of the critical and satiric wit of the middle classes. Look, for example, at this satire levelled against the Crusading spirit. Renart, Bernart and Bélin set out for the Holy Land with the pious intention of doing penitence and expiating some of their great sins; as soon as they have travelled a few leagues they gobble up some chickens, devastate some enclosed lands and lay bare many places, and return to their castle to celebrate the immortal glory they have won for themselves. Or note the incident when Renart feigns death (it is one of his favourite tricks) and the scandalous parody of the ecclesiastical customs at the funerals of good Christians. Nowhere is the satiric spirit of the Middle Ages seen to better advantage than in the "Renart poems, and nowhere has it more strongly attacked ordinary customs with raillery and jest. The "Renard" literature continued, as has been seen, throughout the fourteenth century, but it deteriorated somewhat, or changed its nature, in this latter period. In the beginning the "Renart" poems were enormous productions: "Renart le Novel" and "Renart le Contrefait" and the "Couronnement de Renart" make up between them 62,000 lines. "Renart le Novel," by Jacques Gelée, is dreary and diffuse; "Renart le Contrefait" is prolix, erudite, pedantic, and still more wearisome than the former work. It is a kind of universal history from the time of Adam down to the year 1319; it is full of digressions and moral dissertations interspersed with scandalous stories. ROMAN DU RENART 63 The "Couronnement de Renart," which is in no way superior to the former work, is peculiar in character, for it is not the outcome of popular inspiration; on the contrary, it is a laudation of chivalry, and was probably written by some great baron who wished for a "Renart" narrative according to his own ideas-Vulpes ad usum leonis. It is scarcely necessary to speak of the immense influence exercised by the "Renart " epic on later French literature and language, and even on the French spirit, for it can be seen in every direction. The spirit of " Renardie" became henceforward a consecrated tradition; sometimes it was united to the spirit of hypocrisy "Pour affubler sa renardie Du manteau de papelardie," as Jean de Meung wrote, and produced the type which we know so well under the guise of Tartufe, Onuphre, or M. de Climal (in "Marianne," by Marivaux); sometimes, without any admixture of sugared hypocrisy, there is the type of the valet or adventurer, shrewd and insolent, from the days of Scapin and Sbrigani down to the days of Figaro. It was of the Art of Love, precisely in the manner of Ovid, that the first author of the "Roman de la Rose" wished to write this author, Guillaume de Lorris, designed to write of the psychology of love, and the pains and pleasures attaching to it, and he planned to do this by a complete system of allegory or personified abstractions. This plan was not new, for there had already been works in the Middle Ages which introduced such personages as "Dangier" or "Malebouche," but what was new was a whole poem which introduced only such abstract figures. This task Guillaume de Lorris carried out about the year 1225, and the work was continued by his successor. The centre figure of the whole is a being so abstract that he has no individual name; he is only called the Lover, and typifies Love itself. Then, most difficult to win, and surrounded by a thousand obstacles which must be overcome, a new kind of Holy Grail there is the Rose, which typifies Beauty. Leagued against the Lover, that is, against love, are certain monsters, such as Hatred, Treason, Avarice, Envy, Hypocrisy, Poverty, Shame, Fear, Jealousy, Dangier1 (also known as power, Dangier is not " danger" the French word is used for "the guardian," whether husband, father, or brother, of the maiden (TRANSLATOR'S NOTE). |