A Companion to Alain Chartier: Father of French Eloquence brings together fourteen contributions that offer a range of perspectives and insights into the works of this exceptional late medieval author. As heir to the past and herald of the future, Chartier reinvented the traditional, whether in Latin or French, verse or prose. Chartier’s open-ended, dialogic works and his own politically-engaged writing inspired his successors to think and write in new ways about ethics, the individual’s role in society, relationships between men and women, and the responsibility of a poet to his/her audience. As these essays show, Chartier’s renovation of poetic form and content had considerable influence over successive generations of writers in France and across Europe. Contributors are: Adrian Armstrong, Florence Bouchet, Emma Cayley, Daisy Delogu, Ashby Kinch, James C. Laidlaw, Marta Marfany, Deborah McGrady, Joan E. McRae, Jean-Claude Mühlethaler, Liv Robinson, Camille Serchuk, Andrea Tarnowski, Craig Taylor, and Hanno Wijsman.

Belle dame sans merci (Beautiful lady with no mercy) (1424) is not readily available in moden English translation elsewhere, making this an essential addition to any library with a medieval literature or French literature collection.

The poem is written in a series of octaves (huitains in the French) each line of which contains eight syllables (octosyllabes), which is also the style of the poet François Villon in the "Ballade des dames du temps jadis" written later in the 15th century. In the debate between the Lover and the Lady, the alternating octaves delineate their arguments. The rhyme scheme is ABABBCBC of crossed rhymes (rimes croisées).

The significance of the works of Alain Chartier in the development of European literature.

This study outlines the history and anatomy of the European apology tradition from the sixth century BCE to 1500 for the first time. The study examines the vernacular and Latin tales, lyrics, epics, and prose compositions of Arabic, English, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Italian, Spanish, and Welsh authors. Three different strands of the apology tradition can be proposed. The first and most pervasive strand features apologies to pagan deities and-later-to God. The second most important strand contains literary apologies made to an earthly audience, usually of women. A third strand occurs more rarely and contains apologies for varying literary offenses that are directed to a more general audience. The medieval theory of language privileges an imitation of the Christian master narrative and a hierarchical medieval view of authorship. These notions express a medieval philosophical concern about language and its role, and therefore the role of the author, in cosmic history. Despite the fact that women apologize for different purposes and reasons, their examples illustrate, on yet another level, the antifeminist subtext inherent in the entire apology tradition. Overall, the apology tradition characterized by interauctoriality, intertextuality, and intratextuality, enables self-critical authors to refer not only backward but also-primarily-forward, making the medieval apology a progressive strategy that engenders new literature. This study would be relevant to all medievalists, especially those interested in literature and the history of ideas.

In "Alain Chartier: Pere de l eloquence francaise" contributors explore the diverse literary production of this influential late-medieval writer, whose concern with personal and political ethics and renovation of poetic form inspired generations of writers, and still resonate with modern readers."

Johan Huizinga’s much-loved and much-contested Autumn of the Middle Ages, first published in 1919, encouraged an image of the Late French Middle Ages as a flamboyant but empty period of decline and nostalgia. Many studies, particularly literary studies, have challenged Huizinga’s perceptions of individual works or genres. Still, the vision of the Late French and Burgundian Middle Ages as a sad transitional phase between the High Middle Ages and the Renaissance persists. Yet, a series of exceptionally significant cultural developments mark the period. The Waxing of the Middle Ages sets out to provide a rich, complex, and diverse study of these developments and to reassert that late medieval France is crucial in its own right. The collection argues for an approach that views the late medieval period not as an afterthought, or a blind spot, but as a period that is key in understanding the fluidity of time, traditions, culture, and history. Each essay explores some “cultural form,” to borrow Huizinga’s expression, to expose the false divide that has dominated modern scholarship.