Professor at the Collège de France, of which he also the administrator, André Miquel has published several works with Editions Odile Jacob of which : L'Evénement (The Event) 1992, D'Arabie et d'Islam (Of Arabia and Islam) 1992, and Deux Histoires d'amour : Majmûn et Tristan (Two Love Stories : Majmûn and Tristan) 1996. "All those who love Tristan and Iseut also love Joseph Bédier, who published, at the dawn of this century, their Novel, re-edited hundreds of times. The recomposition of the legend based on various texts, is rightly considered to be a chef d'oeuvre, and surpasses all the other adaptations whether in prose or in verse. Bédier chose to render the story in prose - and what prose ! Transforming it into verse, and worse yet, into alexandrines - whereas the old poets, Béroul and Thomas preferred the octosyllablic - would have been seen as sacrilege had the project been seen as other what it was intended to be : a most fervent and thankful homage. It is with this state of mind, and with the worry of remaining as close to the original texts as possible, that it was not pushed to the limit with rhymes. Rhymes were sytematically avoided, especially as couplets, when they were already present in a first version."
(André Miquel)