About the scene and clip:
The solo performer reads aloud from one of the closing scenes of the story.

About the work:
Aucassin and Nicolette: This charming work, composed by an anonymous poet around 1200, is the only surviving example of the “chantefable”: it is partly in prose, to be spoken; partly in verse, with assonanced lines of 7-syllables, to be sung. Aucassin and Nicolette reflects a thorough-going familiarity with the genres of the period, such as epic, romance, saint’s life, and lyric song–and a light-hearted parodic attitude toward them all.

About the genre:
See “About the work” (above).

About the edition/translation:
Aucassin & Nicolette, A Chantefable from the Twelfth-Century Minstrels: A Facing-Page Translation, trans. Jean-Jacques Jura, Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2007.

About the performer/ensemble:
Bailey Carr is a Drama student in the Playwrights Horizons Theater School at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2010).

About the production:
This scene was created for “Acting Medieval Literature,” taught at New York University by Prof. Timmie (E.B.) Vitz, in spring 2010. It was filmed by Nitzan Rotschild.