NORRIS J. LACY NORRIS J. LACY
A medievalist with a Ph.D. from Indiana University, I have held previous academic positions at Indiana, The University of Kansas, UCLA (visiting), and Washington University in St. Louis. I also served as department chair at Kansas (French and Italian) and at Washington University (Romance Languages and Literatures) for a total of fourteen years. In 1998 I accepted appointment at Penn State as the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of French (with the "Medieval Studies" title added in 2002).
My research and teaching focus principally on Arthurian literature and legend and on medieval narrative, especially romance and fabliau. In the area of Arthurian studies I have written The Craft of Chrétien de Troyes, co-authored The Arthurian Handbook , edited The Arthurian Encyclopedia (and its successor, imaginatively titled The New Arthurian Encyclopedia), and edited and translated the Tristran of Béroul. I also directed a five-volume translation of the French Vulgate (or Lancelot-Grail) and Post-Vulgate Cycles of Arthurian romance, providing the translation of one of the romances, La Mort Artu . In addition, I have edited or co-edited a number of other Arthurian volumes; the most recent are A Companion to Chrétien de Troyes (2005), The Fortunes of King Arthur (2006), and A History of Arthurian Scholarship (2006). The Grail, the Quest, and the World of King Arthur will be published soon. I also ventured briefly into fiction with A Camelot Triptych. The majority of my articles and papers have also treated Arthurian subjects; most of those are on medieval French literature, but some deal with Middle Dutch and with modern literature (French, English, and American) as well as film.
My non-Arthurian volumes include a book titled Reading Fabliaux and three critical editions: 26 chansons d'amour de la Renaissance (a collection of sixteenth-century French chansons populaires); a "modern medieval" romance (that is, a nineteenth- or twentieth-century counterfeit) titled L'Istoyre de Jehan Coquault ; and Les Voeux du heron, a fictionalized medieval account of the genesis of the Hundred Years War.
In the classroom, my experience includes both the full range of undergraduate French courses (language, literature, and civilization) and a wide variety of graduate offerings. Among the latter are From Arthur to the Grail, Chansons de geste, Medieval Romance, Epic and Romance, Fabliaux, The Literature of Courtly Love, Medieval Lyric, François Villon, Problems of Genre in Medieval Literature, The Medieval Literary Arts, Paris in the Middle Ages, Textual Criticism and Editing, Old French, History of the French Language, Introduction to Graduate Studies, Literary Criticism, Renaissance Literature, and Medieval Comedy, Parody, and Irony. My Arthurian seminars, in French and Comparative Literature, have treated major medieval authors, texts, and themes (e.g., Chrétien de Troyes, the Vulgate Cycle, Grail Literature, Quests and Tests in Arthurian Literature). I have also offered comparative courses that deal with the entire spectrum of Arthuriana from archaeology and chronicles to literature, painting, music, film, the decorative arts, and popular culture.
I have been the
grateful
recipient of several honors over the years. Among them are a
knighthood in France's
Ordre des Palmes Académiques (Chevalier, 1988; elevated to
Officier, 2003 [photo from latter ceremony at right]), my election as
President (1984-87; then as Honorary President) of the International
Arthurian
Society, and the decision of the editors of the journal Arthuriana to name a scholarly
prize for me. I am also particularly pleased by two publications in my
honor. In
May 2000, I was presented with "Por le soie
amisté": Essays in Honor
of Norris J. Lacy (ed. Keith Busby and Catherine M. Jones), a
collection
of articles by colleagues in eight countries. And in Summer 2008, Arthuriana published an issue (a
"Lagniappe Festschrift")
dedicated to me, edited by two of my former students (Kristin L. Burr
and David S. King) and
featuring articles by several more of my former students and one
current one.
Much of my spare time these days is spent on art (especially photography and collage); and finally, but by no means least, I am a lover of cats, books, tropical beaches, and good food.
Selected French and Francophone sites
