Raoul De Cambrai (French, English, Hardcover)

"Raoul de Cambrai" is one of the most violent and passionate poems of the cycle of barons in revolt. The three relationships that structure medieval society - companionship, feudalism and the family - are here seen in crisis. Conflicts of interest, and the competition for resources, result in social disintegration, wholesale loss of life and the collapse of authority. The poem, probably composed around the turn of the 13th century, results from successive reworkings that weave a many-layered commentary on its own moral and political themes. This edition draws on some material unknown to the text's previous, 19th-century editors. It is prefaced by a scholarly introduction and accompanied by an annotated translation in English prose.