Professor Emeritus, French
My research has been in both Medieval French literature, especially the twelfth and thirteenth century, and in nineteenth-century literature and painting. I have written widely in both periods, including books on poetry, Fromentin, and Jules Verne in the nineteenth century, and volumes on Marie de France, the Chanson de Roland and The Old French Crusade Cycle. Articles on Gautier, Stendhal, Merimée, Baudelaire, Zola, Huysmans, Fromentin, Barbey d’Aurevilly and French painting highlight my work in the later period; works on the Jeu d’Adam, Tristan en Prose, Chrétien de Troyes, the Chanson de Roland, Aucassin et Nicolette, Marie de France, and the verse romance-history known as The Old French Crusade Cycle represent the Middle Ages.
In recent years I have focused on the manuscript work, historical study, and romance analysis necessary for the edition of the ten-volume Old French Crusade Cycle. I am now engaged in a study of the linking of allegory, persona, and personification in the formation of western European literature. In terms of the Middle Ages this should lead to a study of the Roman de la Rose.
The College of Arts