Master Richard’s Bestiary of Love and Response

Engravings by Barry Moser.
Richard de Fournival or Richart de Fornival (1201 – 1260?) was a medieval philosopher and trouvère.
This new California edition of the Pennyroyal Press "Master Richard's Bestiary of Love", translated by Jeanette Beer and illustrated by Barry Moser, is the first published English translation of Richard de Fournival's "Bestiaire d’amour" and its anonymous "Response". The work is more than a love argument between a man and a woman in the thirteenth century. It is more than a clash between an Aristotelian and neo-Platonist view of sex and love. It is more even than a conflict between different social, theological, and racial traditions. "The Bestiary of Love" and "Response" reflect problems that are universal to every age: the divergence of male and female expectations, "love," sexual dominance, sexual roles and duties, and sexual exploitation. Furthermore, the Response contains details — which are not always flattering — of female methods of self-preservation in a society where women are vulnerable. Such details transcend their particular social context because they are psychologically relevant in all ages.