This "chanson de geste" records the exploits of the young knight, Aiol, as he reclaims his fathers and mothers unjustly stolen heritage. He gains the love of a Saracen princess who converts when she is convinced by Aiols warriors prowess of the truth of the Christian god. He then aids the French King Louis in ending a debilitating war led by rebellious vassals and (in an allusion to the Fourth Crusade) similarly helps Emperor Grasien, the king of Venice, to end his own war against an enemy to the East. Aiols deeds ultimately bring justice to the kingdom of France. But the poem is far more than the tale itself. "Aiol" artfully recreates both the Christian culture of the West and the Islamic culture of the Levant. Poets writing in medieval French created richly textured literary metaphors or fictions about both the Christian and Muslim world, and they were themselves well aware that even though they were treating historicallybased materials, they were also fabricating fictions and fictive truths, tropes and figures as literary art. Aiols literary allusions suggest a sophistication on the part of the chansons authors, who wrote for courts that knew well and firsthand the Muslim world. By the time of Aiols composition there had long been fruitful cultural, trade as well as military interaction between the "two worlds." Islamic scholars were respected in intellectual circles in the 12th and 13th centuries, and translators briskly adapted works of Arabic science and medicine...

Binding: Paperback;650 pages; Publisher: Italica Press, Inc.; Classification: N/A; Weight: 935.1 g; Dimensions: N/A

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