Bois et forest : signifiants, signifiés et valeurs symboliques chez les animaux du "Roman de Renart"

The aim of our article is to demonstrate the modernity of the medieval novel Roman de Renart. By offering an anthropological lesson, this work invites us to refind our true soul and balance through the accepting of our animal dimension, usually repressed by dangerous ideals of purity. This message is conveyed to us through the nuanced use of the word "wood" by the wildlife, masters of a dreamlike, zoocentric world where the domestication of animals is as illusory and foreign as that of plants, two metaphors for our deep and untamable being. In partly abandoning the aristocratic sense of the word "forest" to adopt new meanings, both semantic and symbolic, subtle yet spontaneous, "wood" suggests an authenticity that we, like the animals, would stand to gain in respecting.