The author of at least two noteworthy romances of the early thirteenth century, Le Roman de la Rose or Guillaume de Dole and L'Escoufle (The Kite), as well as Le Lai de l'Ombre, Jean Renart is today recognized as the most accomplished practitioner of the "realistic romance" in Old French literature.

Patricia Terry has taught literature at the University of California, San Diego, and at Barnard College. She is the translator of Poems of the Elder Edda, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press. Nancy Vine Durling teaches French and comparative literature at Florida Atlantic University.