Category Archives: Elliot, Andrew

Rose: Lover’s sufferings described

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About the scene and clip:
In this clip, the God of Love describes to the Lover the great sufferings that he is going to have to endure. As the performer describes the sufferings, he also acts them out.

About the work:
The Romance of the Rose is arguably the most influential French work of the Middle Ages. This work is a romance, composed in verse and treating of love. But it is a highly unusual romance in many regards. The Rose introduced into romance a set of major allegorical figures such as Love, Reason, and Danger; it established the popularity of the dream vision; and it launched a new fashion in pseudo-autobiographical narrative. The first 4000 lines (in octosyllabic rhymed couplets) were written by Guillaume de Lorris around 1230. This strongly lyrical part of the romance emphasizes the beauty of the Garden of Love, and the suffering by the Lover in his quest for love; Guillaume’s romance was left unfinished. Around 1280, Jean de Meun completed the work by adding close to 18,000 lines; his lengthy and learned text features speeches delivered by such characters as Reason, the Jealous Husband, the Old Woman, Nature, and Genius.

About the genre:
Medieval romances are typically long narratives of love and adventure in which an aristocratic hero (or occasionally a heroine) proves himself in combat and courtship. Medieval romance arose in France and Anglo-Norman England in the 12th century and spread through Europe. Many early romances tell the stories of knights and ladies at King Arthur’s court. In the 12th and 13th centuries, romances are composed in verse (typically octosyllabic rhymed couplets), and are commonly performed aloud from memory by minstrels; romances are also sometimes read aloud. In the 13th century, some romances begin to be written in prose; public and private readings become more frequent.

Allegory is a way of composing and of interpreting texts: characters and the plot point beyond themselves to something “other”—something symbolic. Characters are often personifications of forces such as Love, Pride, Reason, or Friendship. The plot is also symbolic: characters’ struggles are between vices and virtues; their journey may refer to life’s pilgrimage or to the discovery of some great truth, such as the nature of love. Works may be entirely allegorical, or may just contain brief passages written in this mode. Allegorical works are often strongly religious, philosophical, or moral.

About the edition/translation:
Performance abridged from The Romance of the Rose, Harry W. Robbins trans., New York, Dutton, 1962, pp. 49ff. Old French edition: Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Le Roman de la Rose, ed./[Modern French] trans. Armand Strubel, Paris, Lettres Gothiques, 1992.

About the performer/ensemble:
Andrew Elliott is a Drama student in the Experimental Theatre Wing at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2004).

About the production:
This performance was created for the course “Acting Medieval Literature,” taught by Prof. Timmie (E.B.) Vitz at New York University in spring 2004. It took place in May 2004 in the Great Hall of 19 University Place at New York University, at a public gathering of medievalists held under the auspices of the Colloquium for Orality, Writing and Culture, co-convenors Prof. Nancy Freeman Regalado and Prof. Vitz. The performance was videoed by NYU-TV.

Renard: Wolf returns home to his den

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About the scene and clip:
Ysengrin the Wolf returns to his den where his wife, Hersent, has just committed adultery with Renard, who also insulted and urinated on the wolf cubs. Ysengrin is enraged.

About the work:
Le Roman de Renart—The Romance of Renard [or Reynard] the Fox–is the work of many poets, some known, some unknown, of the 12th and 13th centuries. It consists of different “branches,” which recount in octosyllabic rhymed couplets the adventures of Renard and his generally-violent tangles with Isengrin the Wolf, Tibert the Cat, Chanteclere the Cock, and numerous other birds and beasts. Tone and treatment vary, but parody and satire predominate. Many scenes mock feudal institutions, royal justice, religious practices, and courtly love, as well as literary genres such as the epic, romance, and saint’s life; obscenity is frequent. The Renard material apparently originated in France, and then traveled widely, finding receptive audiences in the Low Countries and elsewhere in Europe.

This story comes from Branch II–one of the earliest and most important branches–by Pierre de Saint-Cloud. This particular episode tells about Chanteclere the Cock and his wife, Pinte the Hen; Renart catches Chanteclere but is tricked into letting him go.

The website contains several clips from the Renart that demonstrate some of the many different ways in which characters and scenes from this work can be performed.

About the genre:
While these stories are called a “roman,” that is a romance, Le Roman de Renart is primarily a loose compilation of related tales; these stories also partake of the mock-epic and of satire. Thus, they do not fit neatly into any genre classification.

The tale, like the epic, is an ancient genre and one found everywhere in the world. Many tales are firmly rooted in oral tradition and are recited or told by amateur and professional storytellers and performers. Other tales are the work of literarily sophisticated authors and are often intended to be read aloud or silently from written texts. Some tales circulate separately, while others are part of collections, which may be set in complex frames (as in the case of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Boccaccio’s Decameron and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales). There are many sub-groups of tales with specific characteristics; see for example the “lai” and the “fabliau.”

About the edition/translation:
Renard the Fox: The Misadventures of an Epic Hero, trans. Patricia Terry, Boston, Northeastern University Press, 1983, pp. 29ff. French: The Earliest Branches of the Roman de Renart, ed. Anthony Lodge and Kenneth Varty, New Alyth, Lochee Publications, 1989 (other French editions also exist).

About the performer/ensemble:
Andrew Elliott is a Drama student in the Experimental Theatre Wing at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2004)

About the production:
This performance was created for the course “Acting Medieval Literature,” taught by Prof. Timmie (E.B.) Vitz at New York University in spring 2004. It took place in an open class held at the Maison Française in April 2004, and was videoed by NYU-TV.

Silence: Merlin’s laughter

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About the scene and clip:
This clip shows part of the long scene of Merlin’s laughter: he laughs, in a disturbing way, at situations that do not seem comic to others. The single performer tells the story and imitates all the different voices and characters. Modest props are used: a banana in a shoe is the treasure hidden underground.

About the work:
Silence tells the story of a girl whose parents raise her as a boy so that she can inherit their land. Silence, though inwardly conflicted over her true nature, becomes a successful knight and minstrel and unwittingly attracts the love of the queen. Silence is finally unmasked by the seer Merlin; now a woman, she wins the love of the king. This unusual romance contains major female characters whose names refer to speech (Silence and Euphemie) and the allegorical adversaries, Nature vs. Nurture. The website contains several clips from Silence that demonstrate some of the many different ways in which characters and scenes from this work can be performed.

About the genre:
Medieval romances are typically long narratives of love and adventure in which an aristocratic hero (or occasionally a heroine) proves himself in combat and courtship. Medieval romance arose in France and Anglo-Norman England in the 12th century and spread through Western and even Eastern Europe. Many early romances tell the stories of knights and ladies at King Arthur’s court. In the 12th and 13th centuries, romances are composed in verse (typically octosyllabic rhymed couplets), and are commonly performed aloud from memory by minstrels; romances are also sometimes read aloud. In the 13th century, some romances begin to be written in prose; public and private readings become more frequent.

About the edition/translation:
A Thirteenth-Century French Romance, Silence, ed. /trans. Sarah Roche-Mahdi, East Lansing, MI, Colleagues Press, 1992, pp. 297ff.

About the performer/ensemble:
Andrew Elliott is a Drama student in the Experimental Theatre Wing at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2004).

About the production:
This performance was created for the course “Acting Medieval Literature,” taught by Prof. Timmie (E.B.) Vitz at New York University in spring 2004. It was filmed in the classroom by Andrew Porter, a Film/TV student in the Tisch School of the Arts (2004).