Return of Martin Guerre
Avoiding Historical Distortion: An Analysis of Davis's Writing
In a country renown for revolution, a time of looming reformation, and an age of rebirth, the story of The Return of Martin Guerre finds its inception as a historical legal study of the day-to-day occurrences of the lives of peasants in sixteenth-century France. Natalie Zemon Davis crafts her account of the famous story from a historical perspective infused with her own psychological inferences, legal case studies, and factual details. Throughout her dissertation on the case of Martin Daguerre, Arnauld du Tilh, and Bertandre de Rols, Davis showcases a character analysis drawn on various primary resources found within the same time period, yielding an empirical recollection of history flavored with her own suppositions. Her writing results in a realistic rendition of the story of the Guerre family rooted in fact and speculation, appealing to both the historian and the inquisitive scholar. The inception of the Protestant Reformation, the newfound ideals of the Renaissance, and the institutions and expectations of French peasant society all aggregate into a plausible function in which historian Natalie Zemon Davis both implicitly and explicitly provides a valid characterization conducive to the understanding of the actual historical figures displayed within her text. In effect, Davis's anthropological approach in her retelling of the story of The Return of Martin Guerre is successful though not entirely accurate in giving an in-depth psychological character analysis of Martin Guerre and Bertrandre de Rols pertinent to the original texts of Judge Jean de Coras.
For the purpose of providing some historical background, it is necessary to know that sixteenth-century France consisted of a period of religious transition, where the Calvinist movement made great strides in influencing the Huguenots (known as "French Protestants"). The strain of humanism that spawned this movement finds its commencement in the
In a country renown for revolution, a time of looming reformation, and an age of rebirth, the story of The Return of Martin Guerre finds its inception as a historical legal study of the day-to-day occurrences of the lives of peasants in sixteenth-century France. Natalie Zemon Davis crafts her account of the famous story from a historical perspective infused with her own psychological inferences, legal case studies, and factual details. Throughout her dissertation on the case of Martin Daguerre, Arnauld du Tilh, and Bertandre de Rols, Davis showcases a character analysis drawn on various primary resources found within the same time period, yielding an empirical recollection of history flavored with her own suppositions. Her writing results in a realistic rendition of the story of the Guerre family rooted in fact and speculation, appealing to both the historian and the inquisitive scholar. The inception of the Protestant Reformation, the newfound ideals of the Renaissance, and the institutions and expectations of French peasant society all aggregate into a plausible function in which historian Natalie Zemon Davis both implicitly and explicitly provides a valid characterization conducive to the understanding of the actual historical figures displayed within her text. In effect, Davis's anthropological approach in her retelling of the story of The Return of Martin Guerre is successful though not entirely accurate in giving an in-depth psychological character analysis of Martin Guerre and Bertrandre de Rols pertinent to the original texts of Judge Jean de Coras.
For the purpose of providing some historical background, it is necessary to know that sixteenth-century France consisted of a period of religious transition, where the Calvinist movement made great strides in influencing the Huguenots (known as "French Protestants"). The strain of humanism that spawned this movement finds its commencement in the