Aucassin and Nicolette

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Aucassin et Nicolette is a literary work of Old French literature , which was probably written around 1225 by an unknown author.

Aucassin and Nicolette , oil painting by Marianne Stokes

This chantefable , as the author, who writes in Picard dialect, calls his work, is the first prosimetrum (mixture of prose and verse) of the French. Literature. It tells the story in 21 verse and 20 prose passages with sympathy and fine humor. The not very long work testifies not only to the art, but also to the literacy of its author, because it contains numerous, partly parodic references to the literature of the time, e.g. B. to the chanson de geste , the courtly poetry , the courtly novel , the Tristan and Isolde novel, the new prose knight novel, etc. The work has only survived in a single manuscript.

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Aucassin, the son of the Count of Beaucaire , loves the beautiful Nicolette, a Saracen woman who was bought, baptized and raised by a count's official at the slave market as a child. When enemies attack the county, Aucassin explains to his father that he will only go into battle if he is allowed to marry Nicolette, but the count rejects this mesalliance . The official also tries to talk Aucassin out of the marriage and locks Nicolette up when that doesn't help. But she can flee and comforts Aucassin through a crack in the wall, who is now in dungeon because he did heroic deeds in battle, but then had another argument with his indomitable father. She is now building a hut in the forest and, when he is finally free, sends him signs of life from there.

After he has found her, they go to a foreign country together, but are caught in a raid by North African pirates and kidnapped separately. While Aucassin was released from a shipwreck near Beaucaire, learned of his father's death and became a new count, Nicolette ended up in Carthage . Here it turns out that she is the kidnapped daughter of the king there, who immediately wants to marry her off to a Muslim prince. She escapes and makes her way to Beaucaire, where she disguised as a minstrel tells Aucassin their story. When he, moved, asks the supposed minstrel to find his mistress, it comes to a happy ending .

expenditure

  • Jean Dufournet (ed.): Aucassin et Nicolete . Flammarion, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-08-070261-0 .
  • Wolfgang Lange (Hrsg.): The story of Aucassin and Nicolete . Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 1987, ISBN 3-458-19071-6 .

Secondary literature

  • Roger Pensom: Aucassin et Nicolete. The poetry of gender and growing up in the French middle ages. Lang, Frankfurt 1999, ISBN 3-906761-41-X
  • Julius Schlickum: The word order in the old French poetry "Aucassin et Nicolete". Sendet Reprints, Walluf 1976, ISBN 3-500-30280-7 (Repr. Of the Heilbronn 1832 edition)
  • Hermann Sauter: Words and poetry. A lexicographical-literary-historical study of the author of the old French cantefable "Aucassin et Nicolette". Heinrich Pöppinghaus, Langendreer 1934; E. Droz, Paris 1934 (also: self-published by the Romanisches Seminars, Münster 1934)

Web links

Commons : Aucassin et Nicolette  - collection of images, videos and audio files