Hue de Rotelande

Hue de Rotelande
Residence Credenhill, Herefordshire, England
Occupation
  • Poet
  • Cleric

Hue de Rotelande[1] was an important Cambro-Norman poet writing in Old French at the end of the 12th century.

Life

He was a cleric and a native of Rhuddlan. He wrote in Credenhill, Herefordshire.[2] Gilbert de Monmouth Fitz Baderon, a grandson of Gilbert Fitz Richard, was his patron.

Works

His works are Ipomedon and Protheselaus, two long metrical romances[3] from the 1180s of over 10,000 lines, in octosyllables. The names, at least, were from the mid-century Le Roman de Thèbes; the romances are set in Italy. Protheselaus has been poorly regarded for its lack of narrative. The story describes the heroes journeys after hearing that Medea had rejected him as an admirer. He risks death, serves at the court of Medea and in imprisoned, but he is eventually reunited with Medea and they marry.[4]

Several Middle English translations (Ipomadon, cited as Ippomedon in Thomas Warton, The History of English Poetry) were made[5]

A sixteenth century translation The Life of Ipomydon was made by Robert Copland and printed by Wynkyn de Worde.[6][7]

References

Notes

  1. Hugues de Rotelande, Huon de Rotelande, Hugues de Rutland, Hugh de Rutland, Hugh of Rutland.
  2. William Calin, The Exaltation and Undermining of Romance: Ipomedon, in The Legacy of Chrétien de Troyes, edited by Norris J. Lacy, Douglas Kelly, Keith Busby.
  3. §7. Sources and Subjects. XIII. Metrical Romances, 1200–1500. Vol. 1. From the Beginnings to the Cycles of Romance. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes. 1907–21
  4. Spensley, R.M. (1974). "Form and Meaning in Hue De Rotelande's "Protheselaus"". The Modern Language Review (Modern Humanities Research Association) 67 (4): pp. 763–774. JSTOR 3724495.
  5. Jordi Sanchez-Marti,Reconstructing the Audiences of the Middle English Versions of Ipomedon, Studies in Philology - Volume 103, Number 2, Spring 2006, pp. 153-177.
  6. online text
  7. Jordi Sánchez Martí, Wynkyn De Worde's Editions Of Ipomydon: A Reassessment Of The Evidence, Neophilologus, Volume 89, Number 1, January, 2005.

External links