Tuesday 28th January 2025, 5:15-6:30pm, Hovenden Room, All Souls College

Jodie Miller (UCLA) - ‘A Fox and a Jackal at Court: The Trickster’s Trial in the Roman de Renart and Kalila and Dimna’

The Old French literary cycle, the Roman de Renart, and the Kalila and Dimna fables of the Arabic and Persian literary traditions both tell the tale of a small canine-like trickster who is put on trial for the crime of trickery at the lion king’s court. The Roman de Renart is composed between the late-twelfth century and the mid-thirteenth, whereas Kalila and Dimna stems back to antiquity with the Panchatantra (c. 200 BCE). Although no direct contact is attested between these traditions until at least a century after the composition of the first Renardian branches, both feature a trickster’s trial scene with striking similarities. This paper undertakes a comparative analysis of the fox and jackal’s trials to better understand the convergences between the Roman de Renart and the Kalila and Dimna fables. In what ways do these trial scenes stem from a global circulation of similar ideals dealing with justice and ethics? 

The analysis of this paper focuses on the following aspects of the trial scene: the depiction of the crime of trickery, the juridical structure of the trials, and the trials’ verdicts. Both texts portray trickery through the subversion of ethical ideals leading to social chaos. Renart is gluttonous and lustful, unable to stop himself from tricking to find a meal or from satisfying himself sexually. Dimna, on the other hand, is greedy and prideful in search for political prestige. Both Renart and Dimna advocate for themselves at trial and manipulate a weak king, albeit within different juridical structures. Kalila and Dimna features a disputational defense-and-response structure, whereas Renart’s trial is based on customary law and the medieval “ordeal.” Various forms of evidence are brought forth during the investigation of their crimes (i.e., physiognomic proof and testimony), however only Dimna is found guilty and punished. Renart escapes at the end of his trial. 

 

Adam Husain (Christ Church) -  Le Temps retrouvé : An Apology for Lost Time?

À la recherche du temps perdu finishes with a very long rant. The narrator, buoyed up by a fresh injection of epiphany, rattles off a whole new philosophy, which is centred around the odd claim that, as Empson once put it: “sometimes when you are living in one place you are reminded of living in another place, and [thus] you are outside time”. Is there any way of making such an idea believable or interesting? Should we instead treat the narrator as “mad”?  In this talk, I outline a new way of reading the closing pages of the Recherche as the culmination of a contradiction developed throughout the novel, and a true apology for lost time.