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The chanson de geste represents the first manifestation of a French literary tradition, with its oldest extant written text dating from around 1098. This is the Chanson de Roland, preserved in the Oxford Manuscript Digby 23. These chansons, and the Chanson de Roland in particular, have been the focus of critical attention from the nineteenth century onwards, as theories of their origins, the means of their composition and dissemination, their relation to history, and their function as ideological and literary models have been repeatedly constructed and deconstructed. Whether we take the view expressed by Gaston Paris in the late nineteenth century and see the chansons de geste as works of the collective imagination that grew and evolved as part of a nascent national consciousness (traditionalism), or whether we espouse the view of Joseph Bédier, who in the early years of the twentieth century suggested that the chansons de geste were consciously and spontaneously created by individual poets (individualism), seems to matter relatively little nowadays. The essential point to note here is that epic texts, by their very nature as texts spanning the oral/literary divide, were subject to mouvance – that is, to reinvention, renewal and rewriting. Even if they were composed as integral poems, their subsequent dissemination through singing and performance, and through repeated copying over the years, produced living texts, open to transformation and regeneration in response to their changing context.
Covering the period from the late thirteenth to the early sixteenth century, Poetry, Knowledge, and Community examines the role of poetry in French culture in transmitting and shaping knowledge. The volume reveals the interplay between poet, text, and audience, and explores the key dynamics of later medieval French poetry and of the communities in which it was produced. Essays in both English and French are organised into three inter-related sections, "Learned Poetry/ Poetry and Learning", "Poetry or Prose?", and "Poetic Communities", and address both canonical and less well-known French and Occitan verse literature, together with a wide range of complementary subject areas. The international cast of contributors to the volume includes many of the best-known scholars in the field: the introductory essay is by Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet (Université de Paris IV, Sorbonne), and keynote essays are provided by David F. Hult (University of California, Berkeley), Michel Zink (Collège de France), and Nancy Freeman Regalado (New York University).
Edited by REBECCA DIXON (University of Manchester) and FINN E. SINCLAIR (University of Cambridge), with Adrian Armstrong (University of Manchester), Sylvia Huot (University of Cambridge), and Sarah Kay (University of Princeton).
CONTRIBUTORS: Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Mishtooni Bose, Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet, Rebecca Dixon, Thelma Fenster, Denis Hüe, David Hult, Stephanie Kamath, Deborah McGrady, Amandine Mussou, Nancy Freeman Regalado, Jennifer Saltzstein, Finn E. Sinclair, Lori J. Walters, David Wrisley, Michel Zink
Edited by
Rebecca Dixon, Lecturer in French Studies, University of Manchester,Finn E. Sinclair, Research Associate, University of Cambridge; Fellow in French, Girton College, Cambridge
Edited by
Rebecca Dixon, Lecturer in French Studies, University of Manchester,Finn E. Sinclair, Research Associate, University of Cambridge; Fellow in French, Girton College, Cambridge
Edited by
Rebecca Dixon, Lecturer in French Studies, University of Manchester,Finn E. Sinclair, Research Associate, University of Cambridge; Fellow in French, Girton College, Cambridge
Edited by
Rebecca Dixon, Lecturer in French Studies, University of Manchester,Finn E. Sinclair, Research Associate, University of Cambridge; Fellow in French, Girton College, Cambridge
Edited by
Rebecca Dixon, Lecturer in French Studies, University of Manchester,Finn E. Sinclair, Research Associate, University of Cambridge; Fellow in French, Girton College, Cambridge
Edited by
Rebecca Dixon, Lecturer in French Studies, University of Manchester,Finn E. Sinclair, Research Associate, University of Cambridge; Fellow in French, Girton College, Cambridge
Edited by
Rebecca Dixon, Lecturer in French Studies, University of Manchester,Finn E. Sinclair, Research Associate, University of Cambridge; Fellow in French, Girton College, Cambridge
Edited by
Rebecca Dixon, Lecturer in French Studies, University of Manchester,Finn E. Sinclair, Research Associate, University of Cambridge; Fellow in French, Girton College, Cambridge
This volume forms part of a collaborative research project ‘Poetic Knowledge in Late Medieval France’, which examines the role of poetry in French culture from the late thirteenth to the early sixteenth centuries in transmitting and shaping knowledge. The project looks not only at the explicit content of the poetry but also, more importantly, at the kinds of knowledge that are implied by its form and context, at the types of expertise to which it gives rise, and at the nature of the communities it presupposes or creates.
The majority of the chapters presented here are drawn from the project's conference (‘Poetry, Knowledge and Community in Late Medieval France’, Princeton University, 1–4 November 2006) and the rest from papers given by invited speakers at its regular research seminars. These have all contributed substantially to the ongoing research of the ‘Poetic Knowledge’ project, exploring and developing key areas of thought and extending the horizons of what we mean by ‘poetry’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘community’, and the ways in which these concepts may be seen to interrelate. The chapters comprise studies of both canonical and less well-known French and Occitan verse literature, and cover a wide range of complementary subject areas including the status of poetry as an object of knowledge; poetry and philosophy; the relationship between verse and prose; citation; textual histories and textual communities; the transmission and revision of poetic texts; and the relationship between poetry, politics, and power. The wider implications of these individual studies will be drawn out in the volume's conclusion, which explores the significant role played by poetry (as opposed to prose) in the culture of knowledge of late medieval France.
The period covered by this volume extends from the late thirteenth to the late fifteenth century, encompassing the rich and influential developments in poetic form and content that flourished in the years between Jean de Meun's composition of his continuation of the Roman de la Rose and the poetic works of Meschinot. This may generally be thought of as the period during which prose writing came to the fore, transmitting a straightforward ‘truth’ that contrasted with the beguiling tortuousness of verse.
Edited by
Rebecca Dixon, Lecturer in French Studies, University of Manchester,Finn E. Sinclair, Research Associate, University of Cambridge; Fellow in French, Girton College, Cambridge
Edited by
Rebecca Dixon, Lecturer in French Studies, University of Manchester,Finn E. Sinclair, Research Associate, University of Cambridge; Fellow in French, Girton College, Cambridge
Edited by
Rebecca Dixon, Lecturer in French Studies, University of Manchester,Finn E. Sinclair, Research Associate, University of Cambridge; Fellow in French, Girton College, Cambridge