10 - The Anti-heroic Heart

Summary

Triumphs achieved, tasks accomplished, challenges mastered: such are the conclusions expected for a hero's quest. What kind of quest ends with the hero hospitalized after being clubbed down by a fat, rude, rebellious hunchback clad in worn-out rusty armour? And why would a medieval nobleman want to claim such a story as his own? These questions face the readers of a unique French work known as the Livre du Cuer d'Amours Espris (Book of the Love-smitten Heart), written by René, the duke of Anjou, during the last half of the fifteenth century. The Livre du Cuer is both a testament to the enduring legacy of the great heroic narratives of the Middle Ages and a radical reinterpretation of their meaning. René borrows the form of Arthurian romance to tell a story about his experience of being in love, transforming romance into allegory, a narrative with multiple levels of meaning. In a simple sense, acknowledging the combination of forms explains the ending of the work and its author's aim in writing it. The hero of this work is Cuer (Heart), the author's own heart personified in the form of a knight, and the repulsive opponent responsible for his downfall is Reffus (Refusal); René has quashed the triumphant ending typical of heroic narrative in order to depict himself figuratively as a desperate lover. Yet René's combination of forms deserves more attention than this simple explanation suggests.