Reynard the Fox

Reynard the Fox is a literary cycle of medieval allegorical Dutch, English, French and German fables. The first extant versions of the cycle date from the second half of the 12th century. The genre was popular throughout the Late Middle Ages, as well as in chapbook form throughout the Early Modern period. The stories are largely concerned with the main character Reynard, an anthropomorphic red fox, trickster figure. His adventures usually involve his deceiving other anthropomorphic animals for his own advantage or trying to avoid their retaliatory efforts. His main enemy and victim across the cycle is his uncle, the wolf, Isengrim (or Ysengrim). While the character of Reynard appears in later works, the core stories were written during the Middle Ages by multiple authors and are often seen as parodies of medieval literature such as courtly love stories and chansons de geste, as well as a satire of political and religious institutions. The trickster fox, Reynard, lives in a society of other talking animals (lion, bear, wolf, donkey, et cetera), making the stories a beast epic. The original copies were written in Old French, and have since been translated into many different languages. However, the tales of Reynard come from all across Europe and each retelling has details that are specific to its area. The tales, no matter where they take place, are designed to represent the society around them and include the structures of society around them such as a noble court. While the authors take many liberties with the story telling, not all of the satire is meant to be rude or malicious in intent. The main characters are anthropomorphic animals. The given names of the animals are of Old High German origin; most of them were in common use as personal names in medieval Lorraine. The characters of Reynard the Fox were based on the medieval hierarchy, and are treated as human throughout the tales. Though, since multiple authors wrote the text, characters' personalities often change.

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Related concepts (7)

Trickster

In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story (god, goddess, spirit, human or anthropomorphisation) who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwise disobey normal rules and defy conventional behavior. Tricksters, as archetypal characters, appear in the myths of many different cultures. Lewis Hyde describes the trickster as a "boundary-crosser".

Reynard the Fox

Chanson de geste

The chanson de geste, from gesta 'deeds, actions accomplished') is a medieval narrative, a type of epic poem that appears at the dawn of French literature. The earliest known poems of this genre date from the late 11th and early 12th centuries, shortly before the emergence of the lyric poetry of the troubadours and trouvères, and the earliest verse romances. They reached their highest point of acceptance in the period 1150–1250. Composed in verse, these narrative poems of moderate length (averaging 4000 lines) were originally sung, or (later) recited, by minstrels or jongleurs.