An ‘emperor’ under the guise of a Moses: narrative representations of the east in the Songe du Viel Pelerin (original) (raw)

2024, In The Late Byzantine Romance in Context. Narrativity, Identities, and Gender in the Mediterranean (12th -16th centuries), ed. I. Smarnakis and Z. Ainalis, 109-126. London: Routledge, 2024.

This paper analyses Philippe de Mézières’ Songe du Vieux Pelerin , a French text of imaginary and allegorical travel literature dating from the late 14th century, offering a fresh look, related to a Western cultural and political context, at the images of the East. The author analyses how Christian morality, soteriology, crusading politics, contemporary political relations, and ideas are interwoven to create a quest story that reorganizes space and identities. Taking cue from the privileged reader and basic hero of the songe , the French King Charles VI (1380‒1422), the author interrelates the narrative representations of the East with the main attributes of the French kingship’s political identity.