According to the
mediæval poet Jean Bodel, the
Matter of Rome was the
literary cycle made up of
Greek and
Roman mythology, together with episodes from the history of
classical antiquity, focusing on military
heroes like
Alexander the Great and
Julius Caesar. Bodel's division of the literary cycles he knew best into the
Matter of Britain, the
Matter of France and the Matter of Rome calls to mind the concept of the
Nine Worthies, made up of three champions of the
Pagan,
Jewish, and
Christian faiths.
These were the subjects of a good deal of
Old French literature. The poems that were written on them were called the
romans d'antiquité, the "romances of antiquity." This name presages the
anachronistic approach the mediæval poets used in dealing with these subjects. For example, in the
epic poems
Roman d'Alixandre and the
Roman de Troie, Alexander the Great, and
Achilles and his fellow heroes of the
Trojan War were treated as knights of
chivalry, not much different from the heroes of the
chansons de geste. Elements of
courtly love were introduced into the poems; in the
Roman de Thèbes, a romantic relationship absent from the
Greek sources is introduced into the tale of
Parthenopæus and
Antigone. Military episodes in these tales were also multiplied, and used to introduce scenes of
knight-errantry and
tournaments.
Another example of French mediæval poetry in this genre is the
Eneas, a treatment of the
Æneid that comes across as being a sort of burlesque of
Virgil's poem. Sentimental and fantasy elements in the source material were multiplied, and incidents from
Ovid, the most popular Latin poet of the middle ages, were mixed into the
pastiche. The
Philomela attributed to
Chrétien de Troyes, a retelling of the story of
Philomela and
Procne, also takes its source from Ovid's
Metamorphoses.
In the poem, Sir Orfeo, king of
Thrace, loses his wife Heurodis (i.e.
Eurydice) to the fairy king,
While this is not the
classical myth of Orpheus, the poet shows substantial ingenuity in merging the Orpheus of mythology, who tries and fails to obtain the return of his wife Eurydice from
Hades, the underworld, with the traditional
Celtic fairy motifs of the fairy rade or hunt, the fairies' otherworldly kingdom, their attempts to abduct mortals,
This anachronistic treatment of elements from Greek mythology is similar to that of the
Middle English narrative poem "
Sir Orfeo", where the Greek
Orpheus becomes the knight Sir Orfeo who rescues his wife Heurodis (i.e.
Eurydice) from the
fairy king.
The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry which attempt to provide entertainment, enlightenment, or instruction to the reader/hearer/observer, as well as the development of the literary techniques used in the communication of
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The Matter of France, also known as the Carolingian cycle, is a body of legendary history that springs from the Old French medieval literature of the chansons de geste.
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Series on
Celtic mythology
Celtic polytheism
Celtic deities
Ancient Celtic religion
Druids · Bards · Vates
British Iron Age religion
Celtic religious patterns
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Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages (encompassing the one thousand years from the fall of the Western Roman Empire ca.
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Arabic literature (Arabic ,الأدب العربي ) Al-Adab Al-Arabi, is the writing produced, both prose and poetry, by speakers (not necessarily native speakers) of the Arabic language.
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-1210- 1211 . 1212 . 1213 1214 . 1215 . 1216 . 1217 . 1218 . 1219 .
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-1310- 1311 . 1312 . 1313 1314 . 1315 . 1316 . 1317 . 1318 . 1319 .
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Renaissance literature refers to European literature usually considered to be initiated by Petrarch at the beginning of the Italian Renaissance, and sometimes taken to continue to the English Renaissance and into the seventeenth century.
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-1410- 1411 . 1412 . 1413 1414 . 1415 . 1416 . 1417 . 1418 . 1419 .
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Middle Ages form the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three "ages": the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Modern Times.
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Poetry (from the Greek "ποίησις", poiesis, a "making" or "creating") is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible
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Jean Bodel, who lived in the late twelfth century, was an Old French poet who wrote a number of chansons de geste. He lived in Arras.
Bodel wrote the Chanson de Saisnes
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Literary cycles are groups of stories grouped around common figures, often (though not necessarily) based on mythical figures or loosely on historic ones.
Examples of Literary Cycles
..... Click the link for more information. Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the Ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices.
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Roman mythology, the mythological beliefs of the people of Ancient Rome, can be considered as having two parts. One part, largely later and literary, consists of whole-cloth borrowings from Greek mythology.
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Classical antiquity (also the classical era or classical period) is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.
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Hero (Greek ἥρως), in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demi-god, the offspring of a mortal and a deity.
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Alexander III, the Great
Basileus of Macedon, Hegemon of the Hellenic League, Shah of Persia, Pharaoh of Egypt
Alexander fighting Persian king Darius III. From Alexander Mosaic, from Pompeii, Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale.
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Gaius Julius Caesar
Dictator of the Roman Republic
Reign October, 49 BC–March 15, 44 BC
Full name Gaius Julius Caesar
Born 12 July 100 BC - 102 BC
Rome, Roman Republic
Died 15 March 44 BC (aged 57)
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Series on
Celtic mythology
Celtic polytheism
Celtic deities
Ancient Celtic religion
Druids · Bards · Vates
British Iron Age religion
Celtic religious patterns
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The Matter of France, also known as the Carolingian cycle, is a body of legendary history that springs from the Old French medieval literature of the chansons de geste.
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Nine Worthies (les neuf preux) were nine historical figures meant to be the embodiment of the ideal of chivalry. They were first written of in the early fourteenth century, by Jacques de Longuyon in his Voeux du Paon (1312).
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Paganism (from Latin paganus, meaning "an old country dweller, rustic") is a term which, from a Western perspective, has come to connote a broad set of spiritual or cultic practices or beliefs of any folk religion, and of historical and contemporary polytheistic religions
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Historical Jewish languages
Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, others
Liturgical languages:
Hebrew and Aramaic
Predominant spoken languages:
The vernacular language of the home nation in the Diaspora, significantly including English, Hebrew, Yiddish, and
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Christianity
Foundations
Jesus Christ
Church Theology
New Covenant Supersessionism
Dispensationalism
Apostles Kingdom Gospel
History of Christianity Timeline
Bible
Old Testament New Testament
Books Canon Apocrypha
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Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories corresponding roughly to the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from around 1000 to 1300.
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anachronism (from the Greek "ανά," "against," and "χρόνος," "time") is anything that is temporally incongruous—that is, it appears in a temporal context in which it seems sufficiently out of place as to be
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For other meanings of epic, see .
The
epic is long, exalted narrative poetry, generally concerning a serious subject and details the heroic deeds and events important to a culture or nation.
..... Click the link for more information. The Alexander Romance is any of several collections of legends concerning the mythical exploits of Alexander the Great. The earliest version is in Greek, dating to the 3rd century.
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Benoît de Sainte-Maure (d1173) was a 12th century French poet, from Saint-Maure, Indre-et-Loire. His 40,000 line poem Le Roman de Troie ("The Romance of Troy"), written between 1155 and 1160[1]
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