Abstract
One of the more striking features of the twelfth century old French verse romance Partonopeu de Blois is the substantial change the heroine undergoes in the course of the romance proper. In the beginning as powerful and imperative as the fairy mistresses of the lai, Melior loses her magical powers at an early stage and when she marries the hero in the end she has become—at least apparently—a passive and submissive victim. Modern scholars have appreciated this evolution in many different ways. The most intriguing question seems to be how the contemporary audience may have reacted to this loss of power of the heroine. Did it welcome Melior’s degradation as a return to the traditional social order or not? In an attempt to answer this question, this article explores two thirteenth century rewritings of the romance proper: the old French continuation as it is attested by manuscript T and the Middle Dutch adaptation of Partonopeu. Both versions add a considerable amount of text to the romance proper in which Melior plays an important part.
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Reynders, A. Mélior de Chef d’Oire: manipulatrice habile ou femme résignée? Les réécritures du Partonopeu de Blois et le rôle social de l’héroïne dans le roman propre. Neophilologus 94, 407–419 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-009-9175-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-009-9175-7