1941 Edition On the fox Reynaercie .

1941 Edition On the fox Reynaercie .
1941 edition Based on Van den vos Reynaerde (On the fox Reynaercie) - 13th-century epic poem considered a masterpiece of medieval Dutch literature.The poem satirically criticizes representatives of various social groups - the clergy, aristocracy and peasants. According to some researchers, Willem's work presents the point of view of the Flemish bourgeoisie, but this thesis is controversial, and other scholars believe that the target audience of the work was the court audience. This theory is supported by the fact that the author's main interest seems to be the relationship between the feudal lords, i.e. the Nobel king, and his barons, represented primarily by a fox, a wolf and a bear. At the beginning of the action, the feudal order is disturbed only by one unfaithful vassal, Reynaert. When he is about to be punished, the greedy lion pardons him and goes against the other barons. At the end of the piece, when the king wants to make peace with the wolf and the bear, he makes a pact with them that would ban some of the vassals from the law and allow them to be killed. The author thus clearly suggests that the fox's opponents are not any better than him. When, in one of the earlier episodes, Reynaert gives a speech to the king, hypocritically describing his moral failure, he makes a clear allusion to the prophecy in the Book of Isaiah that in Paradise "the wolf will dwell with the lamb". The ending of the poem is an ironic reversal of this prophecy and a picture of the fall of the feudal order - after the events described in the song, peace in the kingdom is preserved only between the strong and the weak.Important shipping from our office in Europe.