About the author

Photo of Dr. Steven Millen Taylor, Ph.D. by Olivia Gatti Taylor Kopitzke

Dr. Steven Millen Taylor, Ph.D.
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Emeritus Professor of French, Marquette University

My interest in Medieval French literature and culture is reflected in my scholarly research on late-medieval French authors, including Alain Chartier and Christine de Pizan. The majority of my research has focused on the works of Martin Le Franc, a fifteenth-century French author whose texts provide a wealth of scholarly material through their innovative and provocative structure, content, and context. My primary goal has been to render his allegorical defense of women, Le Champion des Dames (1440-1442), accessible to an English-speaking audience while maintaining the structure and tone of the middle French original. In this regard, I have published a translation of Book IV of that work (The Trial of Womankind; McFarland, 2005) and my translation of Book V, dealing with the Immaculate Conception of Mary was published in 2010. I have also completed a translation of Le Franc’s shorter work, La Complainte du livre du Champion des Dames a maistre Martin Le Franc son acteur. This site shares a critical commentary to accompany this first English version of the text.