Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


Translation of the Month

March 2023

The Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte-Maure: A Translation. Translated by Glyn S. Burgess and Douglas Kelly. Boydell and Brewer, 2017. ISBN 9781843845430 (pbk); 9781843844693 (hbk); 9781787440258 (online).

Miniature from Benoît de Sainte-Maure's "Le Roman de Troie".
Jason and the dragon, the capture of Helen and the burning of Troy, Roman de Troie, c. 1330, French, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Français 60, fol. 42 (Source: Wikimedia Commons, C.C. 3.0).

"Benoît de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie, dating to around 1165, is, along with the Roman de Thèbes and the Roman d'Eneas, one of the three "romances of antiquity" (romans d'antiquité). These romances launched the plots, themes and structures of the genre, then blossoming in the hands of authors such as Chrétien de Troyes. As an account of the Trojan War, Benoît's work is of necessity a poem about war and its causes, how it was fought and what its consequences were for the combatants. But the author's choice of the octosyllabic rhyming couplet, his fondness for description, his ability to recount the intensity of personal struggles, and above all his fascination with the trials and tribulations of Love, which affect some of the work's most prominent warriors (among them Paris and his love for Helen, and Troilus and his love for Briseida), all combine to fashion this romance - in which events from long ago are presented as a reflection of the poet's own feudal and courtly worlds.
This translation, the first into English, aims to bring the poem and the author to a wider audience. It is accompanied by an introduction and notes."— [Reproduced from the publisher's website]

Ikone der Heiligen Eudokia, Einlegearbeit in Stein und Elfenbein, 10. Jh.Indexers select a translation each month that is significant in the ideas it presents.  This gives users an opportunity to see a range of newly translated medieval works of importance for women's and gender studies.  It also will build an archive of references to translations that will be useful as classroom readings.

Depending upon the content, an entire work may be indexed as a single title like the vita of a saint or the collected cartularies of a countess.  But in many cases the translation deals only in part with issues involving women and gender.  In those instances, indexing goes to a deeper level, identifying and describing specific sections within a text.  For example, there are 93 records for pertinent sections in the Siete Partidas.

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