Search -
Melusine; or, The Noble History of Lusignan
Melusine or The Noble History of Lusignan Author:Jean d'Arras, Donald Maddox, Sara Sturm-Maddox The splendid prose romance of Melusine by Jean d Arras is one of the most significant and complex literary works of the later Middle Ages. The author, promising to tell us how the noble and powerful fortress of Lusignan in Poitou was founded by a fairy, writes a ceaselessly astonishing account of the origins of the powerful feudal dynasty of the... more » Lusignans in southwestern France that flourished in western Europe and the Near East during the age of the Crusades. Jean s spellbinding account of the destinies of the fairy Melusine, her mortal husband, and her extraordinary sons blends chronicle with myth, folklore, and superstition, and epic with romance, in this late medieval masterpiece written for Jean de Berry, the brother of King Charles V of France.
This translation, the first in English to be amply annotated, captures the remarkable range of stylistic registers that characterize this extravagant and captivating work, and is preceded by a substantial introduction to its rich interweaving of history, myth, genealogy, folklore, and popular traditions with epic, romance, and Crusade narrative.« less