Rewriting is also present within the Roman de Renart, both in a single branch that
exists in multiple versions and between branches, through repetition of formulae and
motifs or structure: Branch XII is grafted on Branch XV, Branch VII on IV, with a subtle
play of variations, inversions, and amplifications. Moreover, the Roman de Renart was
rewritten through the centuries: in Rutebeuf’s Renart le bétourné, in the 13th-century
Couronnement de Renart, in Jacquemart Gielée’s Renart le nouvel (late 13th c.), in the
Priest of Troyes’s Renart le contrefait (1319–28), in Jean Tenessax’s Livre de maistre
Renart (15th c.), as well as in modern adaptations.
An animal behaving like a man, Renart plays a wide variety of roles, changing his
name (to Galopin or Chuflet) and his color (red, yellow, black); he is a genius at ruse and
metamorphosis who makes a mockery of all taboos, seeking adventure like a knight-
errant, compelled ever onward by his insatiable desires. What creates the charm of the
work and of its central character is the constant interplay between the animal and the
human worlds, as the former, increasingly anthropomorphic, apes the feudal world. The
animals mimic human gestures—they speak, ride horses, assault castles, pray to God—in
metaphors that the reader accepts without ever losing sight of their underlying animal
nature. Renart’s world is one of physical joy, of nonintellectual relaxation, of the triumph
of instinct. A joyful work paradoxically abounding in death, injury, and mutilation, the
Roman de Renart depicts a cruel universe where action is motivated by hunger and
danger. But the reader senses a feeling of physical, moral, and religious liberation, and
the laughter, both satiric and parodic, is also the anarchic and amoral expression of the
feast of fools. It is a desacralized universe that holds all conduct to be folly and rests
finally on the reality of nature, as does Jean de Meun’s Roman de la Rose. The greatest
value in Renart’s world is life, and to survive is to triumph.
Jean Dufournet
[See also: ECBASIS CAPTIVI; FABLE (ISOPET); JACQUEMART GIELÉE;
PIERRE DE SAINT-CLOUD; RENART LE CONTREFAIT; YSENGRIMUS]
Dufournet, Jean, ed. and trans. Le roman de Renart. 2 vols. Paris: Flammarion, 1985. [Modern
French translation.]
Fukumoto, Naoyuki, Naboru Harano, and Satoru Suzuki, eds. Le roman de Renart édité d’après les
manuscrits C et M. 2 vols. Tokyo: France Tosho, 1983–85.
Roques, Mario, ed. Le roman de Renart. 6 vols. Paris: Champion, 1951–63.
Bossuat, Robert. Le roman de Renart. Paris: Hatier, 1957.
Dufournet, Jean, et al. Le goupil et le paysan. Paris: Champion, 1990.
Flinn, John. Le roman de Renart dans la littérature française et dans les littératures étrangères au
moyen âge. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963.
Foulet, Lucien. Le roman de Renart. Paris: Champion, 1914.
Jauss, Hans-Robert. Untersuchungen zur mittelalterlicher Tierdichtung. Tübingen: Niemeyer,
1959.
Scheidegger, Jean. Le roman de Renart ou le texte de la dérision. Geneva: Droz, 1989.
Subrenat, Jean, and M.de Combarieu du Gres. Le roman de Renart: index des thèmes et des
personnages. Aix-en-Provence: CUER MA, 1987.
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1496