Creole Medievalism: Colonial France and Joseph B馘ier's Middle Ages (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780816665266)

Joseph B馘ier (1864-1938) was one of the most famous scholars of his day. He held prestigious posts and lectured throughout Europe and the United States, an activity unusual for an academic of his time. A scholar of the French Middle Ages, he translated Tristan and Isolde as well as France's national epic, The Song of Roland. B馘ier was publicly committed to French hegemony, yet he hailed from a culture that belied this ideal-the island of R騏nion in the southern Indian Ocean.
In Creole Medievalism, Michelle Warren demonstrates that B馘ier's relationship to this multicultural and economically peripheral colony motivates his nationalism in complex ways. Simultaneously proud of his French heritage and nostalgic for the island, B馘ier defends French sovereignty based on an ambivalent resistance to his creole culture. Warren shows that in the early twentieth century, influential intellectuals from R騏nion helped define the new genre of the "colonial novel," adopting a pro-colonial spirit that shaped both medieval and Francophone studies. Probing the work of a once famous but little understood cultural figure, Creole Medievalism illustrates how postcolonial France and R騏nion continue to grapple with histories too varied to meet expectations of national unity.

Author: Michelle R. Warren
ISBN-10: 0816665265
ISBN-13: 9780816665266
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Language: English
Published: 01/10/2011
Pages: 416
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.01lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.40w x 1.00d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 08/01/2011
Reference and Research Bk News 04/01/2011 pg. 254