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Paperback The Return of Martin Guerre Book

ISBN: 0674766911

ISBN13: 9780674766914

The Return of Martin Guerre

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Book Overview

The clever peasant Arnaud du Tilh had almost persuaded the learned judges at the Parlement of Toulouse when, on a summer's day in 1560, a man swaggered into the court on a wooden leg, denounced Arnaud, and reestablished his claim to the identity, property, and wife of Martin Guerre. The astonishing case captured the imagination of the continent. Told and retold over the centuries, the story of Martin Guerre became a legend, still remembered in the Pyrenean village where the impostor was executed more than 400 years ago.

Now a noted historian, who served as consultant for a new French film on Martin Guerre, has searched archives and lawbooks to add new dimensions to a tale already abundant in mysteries: we are led to ponder how a common man could become an impostor in the sixteenth century, why Bertrande de Rols, an honorable peasant woman, would accept such a man as her husband, and why lawyers, poets, and men of letters like Montaigne became so fascinated with the episode.

Natalie Zemon Davis reconstructs the lives of ordinary people, in a sparkling way that reveals the hidden attachments and sensibilities of nonliterate sixteenth-century villagers. Here we see men and women trying to fashion their identities within a world of traditional ideas about property and family and of changing ideas about religion. We learn what happens when common people get involved in the workings of the criminal courts in the ancien r gime, and how judges struggle to decide who a man was in the days before fingerprints and photographs. We sense the secret affinity between the eloquent men of law and the honey-tongued village impostor, a rare identification across class lines.

Deftly written to please both the general public and specialists, The Return of Martin Guerre will interest those who want to know more about ordinary families and especially women of the past, and about the creation of literary legends. It is also a remarkable psychological narrative about where self-fashioning stops and lying begins.

Customer Reviews

6 customer ratings | 5 reviews

Rated 5 stars
Great "Micro- History," a new genre in history

At first, Natalie Davis collaborated with the director Daniel Vigne on his film, but she became dissatisfied by how many elements of the story never made it into the movie. Her book adds specific details she thought central to the story; such as, the Guerre's Basque roots, Bertrande first meeting Arnaud du Tilh at an inn outside of the village, and Bertrande's reasons for collaborating with the imposter. Davis' story affords...

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Rated 5 stars
History With Academic Rigour and Real Literary Worth

The Return of Martin Guerre is not a regular history book. It is extremely short and extremely readable: a tale of intrigue; muddled and contradictory motivations; ethnic assimilation, sexual deficiencies; witch craft; and the stolen identity of a peasant by another on the backdrop of the Protestant reformation in France, Natalie Z. Davis's account of this utterly weird case of sixteenth century fraud proves the old dictum...

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Rated 5 stars
Reflective Writing

What is real? How do we really judge other people? How do we know what we know? How do perceptions influence social interactions? These are the kinds of reflective questions this book causes you to think about. Set in 16th century France, this case of mistaken identity, where one person assumes the identity of another, is intentionally ambiguous in drawing the reader in to make some personal judgments independent of the author...

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Rated 5 stars
A historical account that reads like a novel

"The Return of Martin Guerre" is a suprisingly simple book about a court case that occurred in the Sixteenth Century. The book is composed of a variety of chapters that cover the background of those involved, the land and industry of the time, the actual court case, and even the background of those that wrote about, and later dramaticized the case. The book itself is very easy to read, and could probably be enjoyed by readers...

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Rated 5 stars
Not only Entertaining, but a New Genre of History

Natalie Zemon Davis? book The Return Of Martin Guerre is a finely detailed, readable and well-researched account of the famous Martin Guerre and his impostor, Arnauld du Tilh. But even more than simply outlining the facts of the story, Davis also uses her research to enlighten us on the roles of different family members in 16th Century rural French life, the politics of family life and peasant life in general, and the role...

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