Aucassin et Nicolette | Edelgard DuBruck (essay date 1972)
Edelgard DuBruck (essay date 1972)
SOURCE: “‘Omnia vincit amor:’ The Audience of Aucassin et Nicolette—Confidant, Accomplice, and Judge of Its Author,” in Michigan Academician, Vol. 5, Fall, 1972, pp. 193-200.
[In the following essay, DuBruck maintains that the author of Aucassin et Nicolette sought to appeal to the common people of the middle to lower classes of society in the late twelfth or early thirteenth centuries.]
Since its first mention in modern times, in 1752, we know very little more about this charming piece of early thirteenth-century French literature than did the contemporaries of Lacurne de Sainte-Palaye, its first translator.1 We do not know the author, we have no exact date, we have only one manuscript (BN #2168), which is partially damaged, and as for the audience to which it was addressed, any conjecture is as fair as it is unfair. Obviously, its remarkable structure attracted...
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