Abstract
‘In the beginning was the Word … and the Word was God’, ‘And God formed Man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life’ (John 1:1; Genesis 2:7). We can recreate the body of medieval man from the dust of archaeology and archive but only the words of the poets can breathe life into the historian’s clay.
A queer thing is a mirror; a picture-frame that holds hundreds of different pictures, all vivid and all vanished for ever.
(G. K. Chesterton)
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Suggestions for Further Reading and Notes
John Fox, A Literary History of France, vol. 1: The Middle Ages (London, 1974). The most recent and useful general history of French literature. Fox includes many quotations from texts in both French and English.
P.-Y. Badel, Introduction à la vie littéraire du moyen âge (Paris, 1969).
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© 1985 Lynette R. Muir
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Muir, L.R. (1985). Introduction: the Mirror and the Image. In: Literature and Society in Medieval France. New Studies in Medieval History. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18029-5_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18029-5_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-32558-2
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