The Melusine Romance in Medieval Europe(English, Hardcover, Zeldenrust Lydia)

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The Melusine Romance in Medieval Europe(English, Hardcover, Zeldenrust Lydia) is written by Zeldenrust Lydia and published by Boydell & Brewer Ltd. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 1843845210 (ISBN 10) and 9781843845218 (ISBN 13).

The legend of Melusine examined in a pan-European context.Readers have long been fascinated by the enigmatic figure of Melusine - a beautiful fairy woman cursed to transform into a half-serpent once a week, whose part-monstrous sons are the ancestor of several European noble houses. This study is the first to consider how this romance developed from a local legend to European bestseller, analysing versions in French, German, Castilian, Dutch, and English. It addresses questions on how to study medieval literature from a European perspective, moving beyond national canons, and reading Melusine's bodily mutability as a metaphor for how the romance itself moves and transforms across borders. It also analyses key changes to the romance's content, form, and material presentation - including its images - and traces how the people who produced and consumed this romance shaped its international transmission and spread. The author shows how Melusine's character is adapted within each local context, while also uncovering previously unknown connections between the different branches of this multilingual tradition. Moving beyond established paradigms of separate national traditions, manuscript versus print, and medieval versus Renaissance literature, the book integrates literary analysis with art historical and book historical approaches.