- Domnei
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Domnei Author(s) James Branch Cabell Original title The Soul of Melicent Illustrator Howard Pyle Country United States Language English Series The Biography of Manuel Genre(s) Fantasy novel Publisher Frederick A. Stokes Publication date 1913 Media type Print (Hardback) Pages 216 pp ISBN NA Preceded by The Silver Stallion Followed by The Music from Behind the Moon Domnei is an Old Provençal word meaning the attitude of chivalrous devotion of a knight for his Lady.
Contents
The Cabell Book
In modern times the word is especially known for the use made of it in the title and plot of Domnei: A Comedy of Woman-Worship (1913), a fantasy novel by James Branch Cabell, set in the imaginary French province of Poictesme during the second half of the 13th century.[1]
It forms the fourth volume of Cabell's gigantic Biography of Manuel, and tells the story of Dom Manuel's daughter Melicent, and of the disastrous struggle between her successive husbands Demetrios of Anatolia and Perion de la Forêt. Carl Van Doren characterised the book as "Mr. Cabell's highest flight in the representation of the extravagant woman-worship developed out of the chivalric code", and as being "unified and dramatic beyond any other of the Cabell novels".[2]
"The Accolade" by Edmund Blair Leighton, painted in 1901, clearly expresses the concept of Domnei
Domnei was written during the years 1910 to 1912, the story being inspired by various illustrations by Howard Pyle which Cabell had cut out of old numbers of Harper's Magazine.[3] The manuscript was sent to no less than twelve publishers before finally being accepted by the thirteenth, Frederick A. Stokes, on the advice of Sinclair Lewis who was then working as a reader for them. Cabell had always intended the novel to appear as Domnei, but the publisher insisted on the less recondite title The Soul of Melicent. Despite this precaution, and the presence of the Howard Pyle illustrations, the book sold only 493 copies.[4]
In 1920 it was republished by Robert M. McBride in a revised edition with an introduction by Joseph Hergesheimer; this, like all subsequent editions, used the title Domnei. The book was further revised in 1926 and 1928, and appeared in an edition illustrated by Frank C. Papé in 1930. In 1972 Domnei and Cabell's The Music from Behind the Moon were published together in paperback as the 44th volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, with an introduction by Lin Carter.
Other Modern Usage
In Paul Gallico's novel Adventures of Hiram Holliday the protagonist - a 20th Century American consciously seeking to model himself on the Medieval knights of romantic literature and to live by the Code of Chivalry in modern society - offers Domnei-style woman-worship to an exiled Habsburg Princess whom he saves from Nazi agents and with whom he falls in love.
Notes
- ^ In The Lineage of Lichfield Cabell fixed the period covered by the novel as August 1256 to July 1274. See James Branch Cabell The Cream of the Jest, The Lineage of Lichfield: Two Comedies of Evasion (London: Pan/Ballantine, 1972) p. 265.
- ^ Carl Van Doren James Branch Cabell (New York: The Literary Guild, 1932) pp. 51, 52.
- ^ Edward Wagenknecht (ed.) The Letters of James Branch Cabell (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1975) p. 130
- ^ James Branch Cabell Domnei, The Music from Behind the Moon: Two Comedies of Woman-Worship (New York: Ballantine, 1972) pp. xiii-xvii, xxi. Edward Wagenknecht (ed.) The Letters of James Branch Cabell (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1975) p. 151.
External links
- Domnei (Google Books)
See Also
Categories:- American fantasy novels
- 1913 novels
- Novels by James Branch Cabell
- Fantasy novel stubs
- 1910s novel stubs
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