Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Medieval English and Dutch Literature in its European Context and the Work of David F. Johnson
- 1 Reconstructing a Lost Manuscript of the Old English Gospels
- 2 The Reception of the Old English Version of Gregory the Great’s Dialogues between the Conquest and the Close of the Nineteenth Century
- 3 An Unrecorded Copy of Heinrich Krebs’s An Anglo-Saxon Version of Gregory’s Dialogues, Printer’s Proofs
- 4 The Body as Media in Early Medieval England
- 5 Who Snatched Grendel in Beowulf 852b?
- 6 ‘Mobile as Wishes’: Anchoritism, Intersubjectivity, and Disability in the Liber confortatorius
- 7 The Presence of the Hands: Sculpture and Script in the Eighth to Twelfth Centuries
- 8 Perceval’s Name and the Gifts of the Mother
- 9 A Relaxed Knight and an Impatient Heroine: Ironizing the Love Quest in the Second Part of the Middle Dutch Ferguut
- 10 Multilingualism in Van den vos Reynaerde and its Reception in Reynardus Vulpes
- 11 Three Characters as Narrator in the Roman van Walewein
- 12 As the Chess-Set Flies: Arthurian Marvels in Chaucer’s Squire’s Tale and the Roman van Walewein
- 13 For a Performer’s Personal Use: The Corrector’s Lines in the Lower Margin of the Middle Dutch Lanceloet Manuscript
- 14 ‘Oft leudlez alone’: The Isolation of the Hero and its Consequences in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- 15 Shifting Skin: Passing as Human, Passing as Fay in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- 16 The Lover Caught Between his Mother and his Maiden in Lanseloet van Denemerken
- 17 Afterlives: The Abbey at Amesbury and the ‘Rehabilitation’ of Guinevere in Malory and the Stanzaic Morte Arthur
- 18 The Importance of Being an Arthurian Mother
- Select Bibliography
- Bibliography of David F. Johnson’s Works
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoria
9 - A Relaxed Knight and an Impatient Heroine: Ironizing the Love Quest in the Second Part of the Middle Dutch Ferguut
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 October 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Medieval English and Dutch Literature in its European Context and the Work of David F. Johnson
- 1 Reconstructing a Lost Manuscript of the Old English Gospels
- 2 The Reception of the Old English Version of Gregory the Great’s Dialogues between the Conquest and the Close of the Nineteenth Century
- 3 An Unrecorded Copy of Heinrich Krebs’s An Anglo-Saxon Version of Gregory’s Dialogues, Printer’s Proofs
- 4 The Body as Media in Early Medieval England
- 5 Who Snatched Grendel in Beowulf 852b?
- 6 ‘Mobile as Wishes’: Anchoritism, Intersubjectivity, and Disability in the Liber confortatorius
- 7 The Presence of the Hands: Sculpture and Script in the Eighth to Twelfth Centuries
- 8 Perceval’s Name and the Gifts of the Mother
- 9 A Relaxed Knight and an Impatient Heroine: Ironizing the Love Quest in the Second Part of the Middle Dutch Ferguut
- 10 Multilingualism in Van den vos Reynaerde and its Reception in Reynardus Vulpes
- 11 Three Characters as Narrator in the Roman van Walewein
- 12 As the Chess-Set Flies: Arthurian Marvels in Chaucer’s Squire’s Tale and the Roman van Walewein
- 13 For a Performer’s Personal Use: The Corrector’s Lines in the Lower Margin of the Middle Dutch Lanceloet Manuscript
- 14 ‘Oft leudlez alone’: The Isolation of the Hero and its Consequences in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- 15 Shifting Skin: Passing as Human, Passing as Fay in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- 16 The Lover Caught Between his Mother and his Maiden in Lanseloet van Denemerken
- 17 Afterlives: The Abbey at Amesbury and the ‘Rehabilitation’ of Guinevere in Malory and the Stanzaic Morte Arthur
- 18 The Importance of Being an Arthurian Mother
- Select Bibliography
- Bibliography of David F. Johnson’s Works
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoria
Summary
An original adaptation
FERGUUT OR DIE Riddere metten witten scilde (The Knight with the White Shield) is one of the oldest (c. 1240) Arthurian romances in Middle Dutch. The romance was written in Flanders, but the only extant copy is preserved in a manuscript, made in the duchy of Brabant around the middle of the fourteenth century, Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek, Ltk 191. Ferguut is an adaptation of Fergus, an Old French Arthurian romance (c. 1200) by Guillaume le Clerc. This romance tells the story of an extraordinary hero who begins his career as the son of a farmer. Knighted at Arthur's court and on his way to his first adventure, he meets Galiene, who confesses her love for him. Fergus spurns her advances and the offended Galiene flees. When Fergus successfully returns from his adventure, he finds himself under the spell of love and leaves on a long quest for Galiene, in which he has to learn to combine amour ‘love’ and chevalerie ‘chivalry’. As the ‘Chevalier au bel Escu’ [the Knight with the Splendid Shield], Fergus fights for Galiene, who, after her father's death, has become mistress of Lothian. Eventually Fergus wins Galiene's hand in marriage and becomes lord of all her lands.
Research has shown that the romance of Fergus was also meant as a literary critique of Chrétien de Troyes's late twelfth century story of Perceval in Le Conte du Graal (The Story of the Grail). Guillaume returns to the romance model centering on the theme of the balance between worldly love and martial prowess, which Chrétien chose for his earlier romances Erec et Enide and Yvain. At the same time, Guillaume rejects Perceval's choice for a religiously inspired form of chivalry, symbolized by the Grail, by creating a new hero, Fergus, who is very similar to Perceval, and whose goal lies in the union of chivalry and love in the service of Galiene. Unlike Guillaume, the Flemish author does not aim at playing this specific intertextual game with the Conte du Graal; instead, the Middle Dutch romance offers a simpler, but skillfully told, fast-paced version of the story.
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- Medieval English and Dutch Literatures: the European ContextEssays in Honour of David F. Johnson, pp. 165 - 176Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2022