Volume 25, Issue 2, 2004
An Old French Romance and its Adaptations
Denis Hüe
Pages 111-129
Faire d'Armes, Parler d'Amour
Les Strategies du Récit Dans Partonopeus de Blois
In this paper the author revisits selected scenes of love and war from the Old French Partonopeus de Blois. He focuses on the rhetoric of these passages and by a close textual reading highlights the dynamics of the romance and the game of echoes between the two spheres. He underlines the symmetry of the discourse of love and war and the constant dialogue which is established by the anonymous author. Epic and courtly motifs are knowingly intertwined to create meaning and to renew the art of writing. He concludes that in this story, love is the way to redeem not only the knight but also the narrator of the romance.