Lambert le Tort
Lambert le Tort (Old French Lamberz li Tors) was a French poet of the Middle Ages, who composed around 1170 a version in Old French of the Roman d'Alexandre, in dodecasyllables.[1]
Contents
Biography
The only thing that is known of the life of Lambert le Tort, apart from the time when he wrote, is that he was a "clerk of Châteaudun", information given by his continuator Alexander of Bernay[2]:
La verté de l'estoire, si com li rois la fist
Uns clers di Chastiaudun, Lambers li Tors, l'escrist
Qui du latin la traist et en romans la mist.
He is sometimes wrongly called "Lambert le Court", but this name comes from a faulty manuscript which bears "li Cors" instead of "li Tors". This version is nevertheless contested by the work Le Magasin Pittoresque published in 1835, which maintains that this error would result from a spelling change.[3]
Work
The part of Lambert le Tort in the elaboration of the composite work which is the Alexandriade, whose most accomplished form is the version due to Alexander of Bernay, was highlighted in 1882 by Paul Meyer, specified and corrected by later critics; one owes him essentially what became the "branch III", the account of the expedition in the East.
Lambert does not seem to have wanted to take again the history of the childhood and the first exploits of Alexander, already told by his predecessors; he composed a continuation.
The work of Lambert le Tort is not known directly, but only through what passed in the compilation of Alexander of Bernay.
Notes
- ↑ The name of the alexandrine in French metrics is precisely related to the Roman d'Alexandre, but with a slightly later version (1180) due to Alexander of Bernay (also called Alexander of Paris).
- ↑ Gosman, p. 128.
- ↑ Magasin Pittoresque, Jouvet & cie., 1835, p. 98.
References
- Martin Gosman, La légende d'Alexandre le Grand dans la Littérature Française du 12e Siècle: une Réécriture Permanente. Amsterdam, Atlanta, Ga: Rodopi (1997).
- Paul Meyer, "Étude sur les Manuscrits du Roman d'Alexandre", Romania 11 (1882), pp. 213–332.
- Paul Meyer, Alexandre le Grand dans la Littérature Française du Moyen Âge. Paris (1886).
