Entertainment / Literature / Roman À Clef: A narrative that represents actual historical characters and events in the form of fiction. Usually in this fictional setting, the author presents descriptions of real contemporary figures but uses fictitious names for them. However, the character's common traits and mannerisms would be so well-known that readers 'in the know' would recognize them. Typically the 'keys' would be published later if readers had trouble figuring out who was who. Most literary historians think of the genre as a type of novel originating in seventeenth-century France in works like Madame de Scud???©ry's Le Grand Cyrus (1649-53) and Cl???©lie (1656-60). However, examples actually exist from much earlier medieval poetry. For instance, in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the character Harry Bailly appears to have been an actual innkeeper who lived in Southwark. Many of the other pilgrims also appear to have real-life correspondences, J. M. Manly long ago summarized the evidence in Some New Light on Chaucer (NY, Henry Holt and Company, 1926). (French, 'novel with a key', also called livre ??? clef, 'book with a key,' pronounced roh MAHN ah CLAY)
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