ADAM DE LA HALLE,

born c. 1250, , Arras, France died c. 1306, , Naples [now in Italy] byname Adam Le Bossu, or Adam The Hunchback poet, musician, and innovator of the earliest French secular theatre. Adam's Jeu de la feuille ("Play of the Greensward") is a satirical fantasy based on his own life, written to amuse his friends in Arras upon his departure for Paris to pursue his studies. Le Cong ("The Leave Taking") expresses his sorrow at leaving his wife and his native Arras. As court poet and musician to the Count d'Artois, he visited Naples and became famous for his polyphony as well as his topical productions, which are considered the predecessors of comic opera. Jeu de Robin et de Marion is a dramatization of the pastoral theme of a knight's wooing of a pretty shepherdess, with dances and peasants' dialogue. Jeu du plrin ("Play of the Pilgrim") mocks his friends for forgetting him.