"Ce n'estoit nyant" subversion and allegory in Rene? d'Anjou's Le livre du cuer d'amours espris /

by 1960- Laycox, Monty Ray

The Livre du Cuer d’Amours espris is a fifteenth?century allegory of a knight on a quest to rescue his beloved Doulce Mercy, and is intended by its author to elicit consoling advice from its reader. The text explicitly states it is modeled after well?known Arthurian tales such as the Queste del saint graal, and mentions another famous allegory, the Roman de la Rose. This study will examine intertextual borrowings from these and other medieval works—namely, the personifications of Esperance and Bel Acueil; the appellation of “faulx” and “loyaulx”; the topos of an alliance between Love and Fortune; dreams and their significance; and a park reminiscent of the Rose’s parc dou champ joli—and will demonstrate how their modifications subvert the apparent allegorical drift of the story. With the aid of reader?response theory, these subversions are seen as preparation for the problematic conclusion of Cuer’s quest: the abandonment of his quest after a single rejection from his lady.