Liefde tussen een moslimprins en een christelijk meisje. Een Perzische Floris ende Blancefloer?

Samenvatting

Europe has had a long history of cultural interaction with the Near East, especially with the Persian-speaking world. The Greek and Persian wars come to mind, of course, but there was certainly far more interaction between different cultures in the Near East and Europe, and many of these interactions were peaceful. For example, many stories were exchanged in this large area. In this article, I explore the similarities and differences in the Persian romance Warqa and Golshâh and the Middle Dutch Floris ende Blancefloer, analyzing how a wide range of common literary motifs connect these two stories. Here I postulate that texts are social beings, adapting themselves to time, place, and the audience. A study of the common origin of a text, however tantalizing, is less important than to analyze the ways a text behaves in a specific literary culture.