The Medieval Author in Medieval French Literature
By Virginie Green (Editor)
(Palgrave Macmillan, Hardcover, 9781403967718, 272pp.)
Publication Date: July 20, 2006
Categories: European - French, Medieval
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Thirty-five years ago Roland Barthes proclaimed the death of the Author. For medievalists no death has been more timely. In Medieval French Literature there are no Authors, only authors—and enigmas. The essays in this volume examine both well-known authorial figures such as Guillaume de Lorris, Jean de Meun, Jean Froissart, Christine de Pizan, and lesser-known ones like Gerbert de Montreuil, Gautier de Coincy, Baudoin Butor, or David Aubert. This book will appeal to all those who are interested in theoretical approaches to authorship. For specialists it delivers an assessment of current theoretical and methodological issues in medieval studies.
Virginie Greene is Professor of French in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard. She is the author of Le sujet et la mort dans La Mort Artu (2002). Her articles on medieval literature have appeared in Arthuriana, French Studies, Les Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale, and Le Moyen Age. Greene has also published articles on nineteenth and twentieth century literature in Bulletin d’Informations Proustiennes and PMLA.
“There is an intriguing misfit between Barthes's claim that the author is dead and medieval texts for whom the author may never have existed. A dozen leading French medievalists reflect here on our desire nevertheless to recognize the authors of the works we read—or on their desire to be recognized by us. Some essays address the play of authorial singularity and multiplicity; others the interplay between effacement and self-staging; yet others the genesis of the medieval text. Greene's nuanced opening and closing remarks maintain focus and pace in this excellent and diverse volume.”--Sarah Kay, Princeton University
“This provocative collection of essays explores authorial agency in a variety of medieval French texts from the twelfth through sixteenth centuries. Contributors argue for the ways in which authorial identity is debated, contested, and constructed through the reuse and continuation of earlier texts, through contradiction and even violence, and through claims to authority, neutrality, and truth. This extended interrogation of medieval authorship offers important new understandings of medieval literary practices and of the textual negotiations that define the medieval author.”--Peggy McCracken, University of Michigan
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