Shapiro, Norman R., Tr., Comedy Of Eros, The: Medieval French Guides To The Art Of Love

The Comedy of Eros: Medieval French Guide to the Art of Love

Shapiro, Norman R.

University of Illinois Press

Engravings enhance seventeenth-century French tales that, inspired by Aesop, offer moral lessons

Fifty Fables of La Fontaine

Literature & Fiction

Robinson, Alan

Fontaine, Jean de

Poetry

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The Fabulists French: VERSE FABLES OF NINE CENTURIES

History & Criticism

Following his first FIFTY FABLES OF LA FONTAINE as surely as La Fontaine followed Aesop, American Literary Translators Association award-winner Norman Shapiro now makes fabulous 50 more fables of the wonderful La Fontaine--among them The Hare and the Tortoise, The Old Man and the Ass, and The Frogs Who Asked for a King. Captivatingly illustrated by David Schorr.

Fifty More Fables of La Fontaine

Before he was twenty years old, Louisiana-born Victor SŽjour expatriated himself to Paris, where his acclaimed dramas would appear alongside those of Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo. SŽjour's mother was a free woman of color and his father was Haitian. SŽjour grew up a free Creole of color in antebellum New Orleans, but was deeply affected by the alienation and discrimination he encountered as a person of mixed descent. SŽjour's inventive transposition of the discrimination of mid-nineteenth-century America to other historical incidents of racial persecution was a device in his fiction and drama, creating a provocative and political metaphor for those whose lives blur the lines of racial and religious identity. Now, for the first time, two of SŽjour's plays, The Jew of Seville and The Fortune-Teller, have been translated from the French for contemporary audiences. The Jew of Seville, a five-act verse drama first performed in 1844, is the story of Jacob Eliacin, a Jew, during the Spanish Inquisition. Eliacin had been humiliated and beaten by the uncle of his Christian lover, Bianca. The couple had fled to Greece, where Bianca had died in childbirth. Eliacin, who amassed great wealth, had assumed the name DiŽgarias, and had raised daughter InŽs a Christian. Twenty years later, as the play opens, DiŽgarias is now a prominent member of the court at Seville, where InŽs encounters and is seduced by Don Juan in a sham marriage. When he discovers Don Juan's treachery DiŽgarias demands that the nobleman marry his daughter. But a self-serving Moor reveals the truth of DiŽgarias' identity to Don Juan, who then publicly refuses to marry a Jew's daughter. After this humiliation, DiŽgarias retreats to plot revenge which will have dire consequences for InŽs. With a stirring verse translation by Norman R. Shapiro and a thoroughly engaging introduction by M. Lynn Weiss, The Jew of Seville is an important and provocative addition to the non-English writings of American-born authors, a historical drama that highlights the discrimination not only of SŽjour's time but of ours as well.

The Jew of Seville

Reference

Sejour, Victor

Encyclopedias & Subject Guides

Before he was twenty years old, Louisiana-born Victor SŽjour expatriated himself to Paris, where his acclaimed dramas would appear alongside those of Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo. His mother a free woman of color, his father of Haitian descent, SŽjour grew up a free Creole of color in antebellum New Orleans, but was deeply affected by the alienation and discrimination he encountered as a person of mixed descent. SŽjour's inventive transposition of the discrimination of mid-nineteenth-century America to other historical incidents of racial persecution was a device in his fiction and drama, creating a provocative and political metaphor for those whose lives blur the lines of racial and religious identity. Now, for the first time, two of SŽjour's plays, The Jew of Seville and The Fortune-Teller, have been translated from the French for contemporary audiences. The Fortune-Teller was first performed in French in 1859, just one year after six-year-old Edgardo Mortara was removed from his Jewish home by the Bologna inquisitor after being baptized by a maid. The inquisitor, supported by Pope Pious IX, vowed not to return the boy until his parents converted to Catholicism. In Sejour's touching rendering of the Mortara case, the infant girl NoŽmi is taken from her Jewish family after being baptized by a wet nurse. Seventeen years later, NoŽmi's widowed and wealthy mother GemŽa masquerades as a poor fortune-teller in search of NoŽmi, who, she suspects, is living with the Catholic Lomellini family, under the name Paola. In exchange for money to pay her husband's ransom, Bianca Lomellini reveals to GemŽa that Paola is indeed the long-lost NoŽmi. Neither Jew nor Christian, torn between mothers, names, and homes, the young woman grapples with an anomalous identity, testing the bonds of both nature and nurture. With a stirring translation by Norman R. Shapiro and a thoroughly engaging introduction by M. Lynn Weiss, The Fortune-Teller is an important and provocative addition to the non-English writings of American-born authors, a historical drama that highlights the discrimination not only of SŽjour's time, but of ours as well.

The Fortune-Teller

Humor & Entertainment

Creole poets have always eluded easy definition, infusing European poetic forms with Louisiana themes and Native American and African influences to produce an impressive variety of highly accomplished verses. The first major collection of its kind, Creole Echoes contains over a hundred of these poems by more than thirty different poets, presented by M. Lynn Weiss in their original French alongside new English translations by Norman R. Shapiro. 
The poems gathered here were all composed in French by Louisiana residents of European, African, and Caribbean origin. Their themes range from love and history to nightmare and childhood recollection. In these pages somber elegies meet whimsical surprises, and rhyming animal fables meet political panegyrics.

Creole Echoes: The Francophone Poetry of Nineteenth-Century Louisiana

Fe-Lines: French Cat Poems through the Ages

The French have long had a love affair with the cat, expressed through centuries of poetry portraying the animal's wit and wonder. Norman R. Shapiro lionizes the felines' limitless allure in this one-of-a-kind collection. Spanning centuries and styles, he draws on she-cats and toms, and an honor roll of French poets, well known and lesser known, who have served as their devoted champions. He reveals the remarkable range of French cat poems, with most works presented here for the first time in English translation. Scrupulously devoted to evoking the meaning and music of the originals, Shapiro also respects the works' formal structures. Pairing his translations with Olga Pastuchiv's elegant illustrations, Fe-Lines guides the reader through the marvels and inscrutabilities of the Mystique féline .

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Pets & Animal Care

Second edition. This collection of medieval French love poetry offers modern translations of seven texts including selections from Ovid's Ars Amatoria Robert de Blois' Advice to Ladies and Guiart's L'Art d'Amour. Includes the introduction to the second edition by Betsy Bowden and to the first edition by James B. Wadsworth. The seven woodcut illustrations by Robert and Corinne Borja are a charming blend of the medieval and the modern. xxvi, 133+ 1 pages. stiff paper wrappers. narrow 8vo..

COMEDY OF EROS: Medieval French Guides to the Art of Love

Wadsworth, James B.

Bowden, Betsy

These wonderfully wrought moral tales will as easily charm children with bright and basic truths as they will delight adults drawn to their reflectively subtle, sophisticated facets of wit and wisdom.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Shapiro, Norman R.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Shapiro, Norman R.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Shapiro, Norman R.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Comedy of Eros: Medieval French Guide to the Art of Love

Fifty Fables of La Fontaine

The Fabulists French: VERSE FABLES OF NINE CENTURIES

Fifty More Fables of La Fontaine

The Jew of Seville

The Fortune-Teller

Creole Echoes: The Francophone Poetry of Nineteenth-Century Louisiana

Fe-Lines: French Cat Poems through the Ages

COMEDY OF EROS: Medieval French Guides to the Art of Love

Fifty More Fables of La Fontaine