Matter of France - Matter of France in Later Literature

Matter of France in Later Literature

After the period of the chanson de geste was over, the Matter of France lived on. Its most well known survival is in the Italian epics by Ludovico Ariosto, Matteo Maria Boiardo and a number of lesser authors who worked the material; their tales of Orlando furioso ("The Madness of Roland") and Orlando innamorato ("Roland in Love") were taken directly from the chansons de geste. These poems, in turn, were imitated in English by Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queene, although Spenser's work has been separated from the Matter of France and put in the setting of an imaginary faerie land.

Tales of the Matter of France were also found in Old Norse, where the Karlamagnus Saga was written in the thirteenth century in Norway; it contains a synopsis of the main stories of the cycle. Indeed, until a major revival in the 19th century breathed new life into the Arthurian cycle, the Matter of France had enjoyed similar renown to the Matter of Britain.

Modern fantasy literature has used the Matter of France far less than the Matter of Britain, although L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt set one of their Harold Shea stories (The Castle of Iron) in the world of the Matter of France, and Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions takes place in a fantasy world where it was historical fact. Through Anderson's book, the Matter of France also had some influence on the popular Dungeons & Dragons game. Italo Calvino's fantasy novel The Nonexistent Knight also takes place in this world.