Poetry
Of Reynaert the Fox
Van den vos Reynaerde
Anonymous · 1260
Synopsis
Summoned three times before the court of King Noble, Reynaert the fox answers for the rapes, murders and thefts of which the other beasts accuse him. He sends the bear and the cat into traps that leave them maimed, confesses while boasting of his tricks, invents a hidden treasure to buy the king's pardon, has his accusers condemned in his place and goes off free, leaving the court to tear itself apart.
Context
The poem is the Middle Dutch version of the Roman de Renart, written in the thirteenth century by a certain Willem about whom nothing else is known, after the French branch by Pierre de Saint-Cloud. The adaptation is so free that it is often held to be superior to its source: tighter, darker, and without a final punishment. An unknown continuator doubled its length in the following century, and it is this expanded version, printed in 1487, that spread throughout Europe and fed the English and German Reynards.
Who it is for
A narrative poem of nearly three thousand five hundred lines, best read in a modernised version or in translation. It is worth knowing that its comedy rests on cruelty.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the major work of Middle Dutch literature, and sometimes as the finest animal tale there is; on the school curriculum on both sides of the border.