The History Of Reynard The Fox: Translated And Printed By William Caxton In 1481.; Edited With An Introduction And Notes By Donald B. Sands

This readable, scholarly edition brings back into print the Middle Dutch classic Reynard the Fox, first translated and printed by William Caxton in 1481. Caxton’s translation introduced the comic beast epic in which narrative takes precedence over allegory, quite different in intent and tradition from the moralistic animal fables of Aesop. Reynard himself is basically a folk hero and a winningly human one, although he in no way represents the little man. “It is possible to admire him,” Donald Sands says, “but in conventional circles we would perhaps hesitate to voice our admiration, for he is dangerously akin to our asocial selves.” In a three-chapter Introduction to this masterpiece of genre literature, Sands assimilates a complex field of scholarship and also summarizes the best of the older studies and all the modern ones on Reynard as the hero of a comic beast epic. PREFACE CONTENTS ILLUSTRATIONS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I THE GOUDA AND CAXTON EDITIONS CHAPTER II THE RISE OF REYNARD IN THE LOW COUNTRIES CHAPTER III WILLIAM CAXTON'S DISCOVERY OF REYNARD THE FOX THE HISTORY OF REYNARD THE FOX TRANSLATED AND PRINTED BY WILLIAM CAXTON JUNE 1481 THIS IS THE TABLE OF THE HISTORY OF REYNARD THE FOX HERE BEGINS THE HISTORY OF REYNARD THE FOX BIBLIOGRAPHY ANNOTATIONS GLOSSARY INDEX ABBREVIATIONS BIBLIOGRAPHY ANNOTATIONS GLOSSARY INDEX ## PREFACE two in the portion of the Introduction where Old French literature is touched upon. Professor Edward L. Hirsh of Boston College did his best to rid the prose of the Introduction of stylistic flaws. Needless to say, the presence of a spouse, as always in such projects, provided the impetus that finally completed the edition.