My purpose was to distinguish between what the authors of the Roman de Renart borrowed from written literature and what they owe to the oral literature of their time. This book is a comparative study of the famous stories of our poets on the one hand with the classical apologues and their medieval derivatives, on the other with a portion of the mass of popular tales that it has been fashionable, for the last fifty years, to collect in all countries and among all peoples. To compare certain ancient fables with French stories that feature animals, to show the analogies that borrowed from written literature and what they owe to the oral literature of their time. This book is a comparative study of the famous stories of our poets on the one hand with the classical apologues and their medieval derivatives, on the other with a portion of the mass of popular tales that it has been fashionable, for the last fifty years, to collect in all countries and among all peoples. To bring together certain ancient fables with French stories that feature animals, to show the analogies that this or that episode of the famous war of the fox and the wolf can have with this or that piece of the Aesopian compilations is not a very new attempt. The list would be long of the works of this kind undertaken with regard to our fabulists, from those of the 13th century to La Fontaine, and with regard to the stories of Roman de Renartt themselves. However, the lineage in the sequence of ages has been, in recent times, made clearer, points that remained obscure have been clarified thanks to remarkable studies published in Germany, France and England and to which I have made an ample contribution. I have therefore only followed a beaten path in this part of my subject and I do not need to justify it further. - [Author]

Language: French