Showing results for "Walter Scott" in World Literature

Queen Marguerite de Navarre was one of the most powerful women of her age. Her masterpiece, The Heptameron, is a collection of some 72 stories told by five gentlemen and five ladies who find themselves stranded in an abbey. Proposed as an edifying way of passing the time while a bridge is being repaired, the tale-telling - as well as the conversations that follow each story - quickly becomes a battle of wits between the sexes, with tales concerning illicit lovers, romantic conquests, lecherous monks, manly honor, and women's virtue.

L'histoire commence en 1194. Wilfrid d'Ivanhoé rentre secrètement dans son pays, après la Croisade en Terre Sainte, et prend part à un tournoi à Ashby sous le nom de Chevalier Déshérité (Desdichado en espagnol), où il affronte Brian de Bois-Guilbert, normand et chevalier du Temple. Ivanhoé est partisan de Richard Cœur de Lion et s'oppose au complot de Cédric de Rotherwood, dit le Saxon, nostalgique de l'Angleterre saxonne vaincue en 1066 par Guillaume de Normandie.