OTHON DE GRANDSON, CHEVALIER ET POÈTE. Etudes réunies par Jean-François Kosta-Théfaine. Medievalia 63. Paradigme, Orléans, 2007, pp. 204.

This is a timely publication focusing on Othon de Grandson, a fourteenth-century poet whose poetry has been dwarfed by his réputation as a knight who served in England and died in a judicial duel in 1397 at Bourg-en-Bresse. He was falsely implicated in thé death of Amédée VII of Savoy in 1391, rehabilitated by Charles VI, but accused again by Gérard d'Estavayer who then held thé Grandson lands and challenged Othon to single combat to décide thé controversy. Contemporary writers - Geoffroy Chaucer, Froissart, Eustache Deschamps, Christine de Pizan, Alain Chartier, George Chastelain - ail mention him. Thé main source of information has been a séries of essays by Arthur Piaget, thé first of which, from Roman/a 18 (1889), is reprinted in this volume, and his édition of thé poetry (Neuchâtel, 1941). A new critical édition will soon be published by Honoré Champion, Paris. He was a prolific poet, with his work contained in twenty-one known manuscripts. As thé bibliography and références attest and Kosta-Théfaine's essay on thé présent state of research amplifies, there has been a growing trickie of publications devoted to thé texts, biography, and literary study. Thé collection includes a study of thé duel, with some documents and illustrations, but concentrâtes on literary aspects: authorship of thé poem "La Belle dame qui eut mercy", thé love dialectic, and two studies based on Le Livre de Messire Ode'. Heather Ardern comparing thé work with Christine de Pizan's Le Livre du duc des vrais amants and Hélène Basso contrasting ils treatment of thé love quest with that of Guillaume de Machaut's Le Dit de l'Alénon. lan Laurie (Melbourne) examines Othon de Grandson's affinities with Eustache Deschamps, in poetic form and structure, rather than in thèmes or personal relations, although Deschamps records anecdotally their encounter at Calais. Claimed by Romande Switzerland as its leading médiéval poet, Othon de Grandson has been celebrated there in drama and in music. It is a compact, well produced book in an established séries, which will usefully complément thé forthcoming édition of Othon de Grandson's poetry.

Massey University                         GLYNNIS M. CROPP