A Shapeshifter in Love: Marie de France’s Yonec and Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve’s The Beauty and the Beast: Parts 1 & 2
Translated by Katharine Margot Toohey
Quemar Press
ISBN: 978-1-7642845-0-9
This book invites you to compare two stories about shapeshifting. The first is the 12th-century tale Yonec, while the second is The Beauty and the Beast, which was written in the 18th century.
Excerpt:
The title A Shapeshifter in Love has different significances. In both these texts, the male hero shapeshifts into another entity because of his love for the female hero. In another sense, in affection for herself, for the male hero and for the space surrounding her, the female hero experiences different shiftings of her own self….As these texts span the 12th and 18th centuries, the first from reputedly the earliest female French poet, and the second from a later innovative French novelist, perhaps there exists a theme across storytelling: one in which a female hero is suddenly aligned with a hero who happens to be in states of shapeshifting, but the crucial metamorphosis driving the narrative to new depths and compassion is her own transformation.
Who is this book for?
This book offers the text and translation of two works: the first is Marie de France’s Yonec, a Breton lai about an unhappily married woman who finds love with a mysterious knight who can transform into a hawk, while the second is Beauty and the Beast, an eighteenth-century French fairy tale by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve about a young woman who finds herself living with a mysterious and fearsome Beast in his enchanted castle.
By pairing these two stories, the book invites readers to consider them together as examples of romantic literature. Despite being written centuries apart, both explore love through encounters with the marvellous and the supernatural, offering an intriguing comparison between medieval romance and the later fairy-tale tradition.
We're proud that the distinguished poet and translator Jan Owen commented recently on our new Modern English translation paperback, 'A Shapeshifter in Love': 'finely translated, clear, accurate and so readable as usual, and also imaginatively illustrated'https://t.co/9piqPE0LQCpic.twitter.com/ZXF9doAd7X
A Shapeshifter in Love: Marie de France’s Yonec and Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve’s The Beauty and the Beast: Parts 1 & 2
Translated by Katharine Margot Toohey
Quemar Press
ISBN: 978-1-7642845-0-9
This book invites you to compare two stories about shapeshifting. The first is the 12th-century tale Yonec, while the second is The Beauty and the Beast, which was written in the 18th century.
Excerpt:
The title A Shapeshifter in Love has different significances. In both these texts, the male hero shapeshifts into another entity because of his love for the female hero. In another sense, in affection for herself, for the male hero and for the space surrounding her, the female hero experiences different shiftings of her own self….As these texts span the 12th and 18th centuries, the first from reputedly the earliest female French poet, and the second from a later innovative French novelist, perhaps there exists a theme across storytelling: one in which a female hero is suddenly aligned with a hero who happens to be in states of shapeshifting, but the crucial metamorphosis driving the narrative to new depths and compassion is her own transformation.
Who is this book for?
This book offers the text and translation of two works: the first is Marie de France’s Yonec, a Breton lai about an unhappily married woman who finds love with a mysterious knight who can transform into a hawk, while the second is Beauty and the Beast, an eighteenth-century French fairy tale by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve about a young woman who finds herself living with a mysterious and fearsome Beast in his enchanted castle.
By pairing these two stories, the book invites readers to consider them together as examples of romantic literature. Despite being written centuries apart, both explore love through encounters with the marvellous and the supernatural, offering an intriguing comparison between medieval romance and the later fairy-tale tradition.
The Author
Katharine Margot Toohey is the founder of Quemar Press, which aims to publish novels and poetry, including works dating back to the Middle Ages. Click here to see some of her other books that we have featured.
You can learn more about this book from the publisher’s website.
Subscribe to Medievalverse
Related Posts