Beiträge zur mediävistischen Erzählforschung (BmE)
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Conversion/Rétrospection. L’autorité ambiguë du ‹je› dans ‹Corbaccio› (1355?) de Giovanni Boccaccio et ‹Le Joli Buisson de Jonece› (1373) de Jean Froissart
Get PDFIt is not uncommon for the authors of late medieval first-person narratives to depict in their later career stages religious conversions, in which they turn away from the love they had celebrated in their earlier texts. By telling of change and renunciation they seem to establish a new literary authority. But in fact, even in such revisions, the ego remains unstable and dynamic. This is shown by two well-known ‹love treatises› of late medieval Italian and French literature, written almost at the same time. Giovanni Boccaccio’s ‹Corbaccio› can be read as a parody of a conversion in which misogyny and body hostility are exposed as extreme effects of male loss of control. This interpretation only becomes possible if one considers the framing of the dream in which the frustrated ego is ‹enlightened› about the ›true› nature of women by the dead husband of the beloved: As is explicitly emphasized in the text, the vision is sent by Fortuna; accordingly, its messages are fickle, excessive, and questionable. In Jean Froissart’s ‹Le Joli Buisson de Jonece›, the conversion, which here occurs only upon awakening, is also ambivalently coded. However, in his Dit past and unfulfilled love is not condemned, but fixed in its aesthetic value and thus removed from time. Whereas in Boccaccio a conversion seems ultimately impossible for the subject, in Froissart the «old life» is preserved in poetic form like a precious self-portrait.It is not uncommon for the authors of late medieval first-person narratives to depict in their later career stages religious conversions, in which they turn away from the love they had celebrated in their earlier texts. By telling of change and renunciation they seem to establish a new literary authority. But in fact, even in such revisions, the ego remains unstable and dynamic. This is shown by two well-known ‹love treatises› of late medieval Italian and French literature, written almost at the same time. Giovanni Boccaccio’s ‹Corbaccio› can be read as a parody of a conversion in which misogyny and body hostility are exposed as extreme effects of male loss of control. This interpretation only becomes possible if one considers the framing of the dream in which the frustrated ego is ‹enlightened› about the ›true› nature of women by the dead husband of the beloved: As is explicitly emphasized in the text, the vision is sent by Fortuna; accordingly, its messages are fickle, excessive, and questionable. In Jean Froissart’s ‹Le Joli Buisson de Jonece›, the conversion, which here occurs only upon awakening, is also ambivalently coded. However, in his Dit past and unfulfilled love is not condemned, but fixed in its aesthetic value and thus removed from time. Whereas in Boccaccio a conversion seems ultimately impossible for the subject, in Froissart the «old life» is preserved in poetic form like a precious self-portrait
Fiction du moi en auteur satiriste: nom propre et posture d’autodérision dans le songe al-légorique chez Raoul de Houdenc, Rutebeuf et Martin Le Franc
Get PDFThe aim is to study the ways in which the proper name is inserted and (re)semantised in the text, and the games of fictionalisation of the authorial persona authorised by the first-person narrative in order to establish an auctorial persona in an ironic mode: Belzebuth’s minstrel, songeur-laboureur, bœuf rude or ivrogne, author accused by his book, Malebouche’s victim. The I-actor-narrator puts himself on stage and projects himself into apparently devalued or disqualifying roles in order to express, paradoxically and with impunity, a writer’s ambition in the distanced and playful mode allowed by the distance of the dream. Self-mockery in the auctorial posture is thus at once a game, a weapon, an alibi for criticism or satire, and a claim to auctorial dignity between humility and the ambition for recognition.The aim is to study the ways in which the proper name is inserted and (re)semantised in the text, and the games of fictionalisation of the authorial persona authorised by the first-person narrative in order to establish an auctorial persona in an ironic mode: Belzebuth’s minstrel, songeur-laboureur, bœuf rude or ivrogne, author accused by his book, Malebouche’s victim. The I-actor-narrator puts himself on stage and projects himself into apparently devalued or disqualifying roles in order to express, paradoxically and with impunity, a writer’s ambition in the distanced and playful mode allowed by the distance of the dream. Self-mockery in the auctorial posture is thus at once a game, a weapon, an alibi for criticism or satire, and a claim to auctorial dignity between humility and the ambition for recognition
Appunti sulla fisionomia del Cavalca – autore
Get PDFAn analysis of the technical terminology used by Domenico Cavalca with respect to his activity of translating Latin texts in vernacular language demonstrates that the Preacher friar’s linguistic choices are extremely well pondered. Indeed, the author’s voice emerges in characteristic wordings such as ›tutto dì veggiamo‹ and ›per esperienza veggiamo‹, which refer to a concrete factual experience and hence to the everyday reality of his audience. The use of this kind of expression, which presents ties to the period’s scientific and rhetoric literature, and which appears also in Dante’s and Boccaccio’s prose, is particularly frequent in Cavalca’s last work, the ›Esposizione del Credo‹. In fact, this treatise proves to be of crucial importance for his self-constitution as a Dominican author.An analysis of the technical terminology used by Domenico Cavalca with respect to his activity of translating Latin texts in vernacular language demonstrates that the Preacher friar’s linguistic choices are extremely well pondered. Indeed, the author’s voice emerges in characteristic wordings such as ›tutto dì veggiamo‹ and ›per esperienza veggiamo‹, which refer to a concrete factual experience and hence to the everyday reality of his audience. The use of this kind of expression, which presents ties to the period’s scientific and rhetoric literature, and which appears also in Dante’s and Boccaccio’s prose, is particularly frequent in Cavalca’s last work, the ›Esposizione del Credo‹. In fact, this treatise proves to be of crucial importance for his self-constitution as a Dominican author
Literary Authority and Chivalric Authority in the Works of Jean III de Werchin (›Le Songe de la barge‹, challenge letters and ballads composed with Guillebert de Lannoy)
Get PDFThe works of Jean III de Werchin point out an evolution of literary practices at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries. The challenge letters sent by the seneschal to his potential opponents rely on a double literary authority: firstly, on the model of past knights, especially those of the Round Table; secondly, on the courtly scenario of a man fighting for his lady’s honour. The inclusion of those challenge letters in a manuscript containing 15th century pas d’armes shows that Werchin’s rhetoric stands at the transition from ›plain‹ military practices to military challenges based on literary scenarios. As for Werchin’s ›Songe de la barge‹ and poetic debate with his squire Guillebert de Lannoy, both works testify to the development of a literary aesthetic among knights, especially from the 14th century onwards. This aesthetic relies on the cultural companionship and complicity between members of the chivalric class – a class whose function is to take sides in cultural, social and military conflicts. Within this class, the literary form of the ‹debate› aims less at a reflection on the world than at a playful opposition, on both linguistic and cultural levels.The works of Jean III de Werchin point out an evolution of literary practices at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries. The challenge letters sent by the seneschal to his potential opponents rely on a double literary authority: firstly, on the model of past knights, especially those of the Round Table; secondly, on the courtly scenario of a man fighting for his lady’s honour. The inclusion of those challenge letters in a manuscript containing 15th century pas d’armes shows that Werchin’s rhetoric stands at the transition from ›plain‹ military practices to military challenges based on literary scenarios. As for Werchin’s ›Songe de la barge‹ and poetic debate with his squire Guillebert de Lannoy, both works testify to the development of a literary aesthetic among knights, especially from the 14th century onwards. This aesthetic relies on the cultural companionship and complicity between members of the chivalric class – a class whose function is to take sides in cultural, social and military conflicts. Within this class, the literary form of the ‹debate› aims less at a reflection on the world than at a playful opposition, on both linguistic and cultural levels
A Temporary Community of the Saints
No full textAuf fast allen spätmittelalterlichen Altarretabeln repräsentieren Figuren oder Bildnisse die Heiligen, denen der Altar geweiht wurde. In der Regel waren diese Heiligen über ihre Reliquien im Stipes materiell gegenwärtig. Aber waren sie deshalb auch als Heilige physisch präsent? Bereits im ›Dialogus Miraculorum‹ des Caesarius von Heisterbach bricht an verschiedenen Stellen die Idee einer »Realpräsenz« durch, der gemäß sich die Heiligen – auch durch mitunter massive körperliche Gewaltanwendung – in das Leben derer, die sie verehrten, einmischen. Vor dem Hintergrund eines Konzeptes, das nicht von Repräsentation, sondern von tatsächlicher Präsenz ausgeht, fragt der vorliegende Beitrag nach den Bedingungen, unter denen sich die Gemeinschaften der Heiligen je und je formierten, ihrer Persistenz und – nicht zuletzt – nach den Möglichkeiten der Gläubigen, auf die Heiligen Einfluss zu nehmen.On almost all late medieval altarpieces, figures or portraits represent the saints to whom the altar was dedicated. As a rule, these saints were physically present in the stipes through their relics. But did this mean that they were also physically present as saints? Already in the ›Dialogus Miraculorum‹ of Caesarius of Heisterbach, the idea of a »real presence« breaks through in various places, according to which the saints intervened in the lives of those who venerated them – sometimes through the use of massive physical violence. Against the background of a concept that is not based on representation but on actual presence, this article examines the conditions under which the communities of saints were formed, their persistence and – not least – the possibilities for the faithful to influence the saints
Medieval Forms of First-Person Narration: Authorship – Authorization – Authority (Villa Vigoni Talks III): ed. by Mireille Demaules / Irene Iocca / Julia Rüthemann
No full textThis multi-author volume takes as its subject medieval first-person poetic narratives, a literary format that came to prominence in the course of the later European Middle Ages (c. 1250-1500), quickly developing into an extensive text family. The papers published here were presented at a trilateral conference series held at the Villa Vigoni in Italy. This present volume takes up the questions explored during the third conference: How do medieval first-person narratives conceptualize authorship and put it into practice? What kind of authority do they invoke? How do they connect to that authority? What precisely are the processes of authorization involved? To be sure, such questions might be asked of texts in every format, but they are especially crucial to the analysis of first-person narratives because the ›I‹ is by definition implicated in the events narrated or, at the very least, in the narrated world where they unfold. This essential quality of first-person narratives prompts further questions: What is the narrator’s relation to the narrative and the text itself, its creation? What do the formal features of the texts tell us about the presence of an authorial ‘I’, how does he or she relate to the discursive content, and, perhaps most crucially, what purpose does the text itself come to serve?This multi-author volume takes as its subject medieval first-person poetic narratives, a literary format that came to prominence in the course of the later European Middle Ages (c. 1250-1500), quickly developing into an extensive text family. The papers published here were presented at a trilateral conference series held at the Villa Vigoni in Italy. This present volume takes up the questions explored during the third conference: How do medieval first-person narratives conceptualize authorship and put it into practice? What kind of authority do they invoke? How do they connect to that authority? What precisely are the processes of authorization involved? To be sure, such questions might be asked of texts in every format, but they are especially crucial to the analysis of first-person narratives because the ›I‹ is by definition implicated in the events narrated or, at the very least, in the narrated world where they unfold. This essential quality of first-person narratives prompts further questions: What is the narrator’s relation to the narrative and the text itself, its creation? What do the formal features of the texts tell us about the presence of an authorial ‘I’, how does he or she relate to the discursive content, and, perhaps most crucially, what purpose does the text itself come to serve
(Non-)Verbal Communication and (Un-)Veiled Evidence under the Sign of Fire. ›Temporal Communities‹ in and around Jacob Appet’s ›The Knight beneath the Tub‹
No full textIn diesem Beitrag wird der Begriff der ›temporal community‹ für die Verknüpfung der Motivbausteine ›Lügen mit der Wahrheit‹ und ›Befreiung des Geliebten mittels Feuerrufs‹ in Jacob Appets ›Der Ritter unter dem Zuber‹ gebraucht. Ausgehend von einem intertextuellen Verweis im späteren ›Reinfried von Braunschweig‹ und unter vergleichendem Einbezug des altfranzösischen Fabliaux ›Le Cuvier‹ mit Appets Versnovelle wird gezeigt, dass Appet speziell vor den falschen Worten und Gebärden schöner Frauen warnt und so den Geschlechterkampf im ›Ritter unter dem Zuber‹ drastisch zuspitzt. Der naturkundliche Vergleich des Liebespaares mit einem Salamander im Feuer eröffnet schließlich eine Relektüre des Märes ›im Zeichen des Feuers‹, die Jacob Appet als gelehrten und deshalb für den anonymen ›Reinfried‹-Dichter zitierfähigen Autor ausweist.In this article, the notion of ›temporal community‹ is used to describe the combination of the motifs ›lying with the truth‹ and ›liberation of the beloved by means of a cry of fire‹ in Jacob Appet’s ›The Knight beneath the Tub‹. By taking an intertextual reference in the later ›Reinfried von Braunschweig‹ as a starting point and by comparing Appet’s short verse narrative with the Old French fabliau ›Le Cuvier‹, it is shown that Appet specifically warns against the false words and gestures of beautiful women, thus drastically intensifying the battle of the sexes in the ›Knight beneath the Tub‹. Finally, the natural scientific comparison of the lovers with a salamander in the fire opens a re-reading of the narrative ›under the sign of fire‹, which proves Jacob Appet to be an erudite and therefore quotable author for the anonymous ›Reinfried‹ poet
Introduction. Narrative Voices, their Effects in Saga Literature, and the Case of ›Gull-Þóris saga‹
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Creating Time. The Saga Narrator as God
Get PDFErzählungen nehmen wir oft ähnlich wahr wie unser reales Leben: Für einen Moment wird die von Menschen gestaltete Zeit aufgehoben, und man wird Teil einer göttlichen Ewigkeit, in der man die Vergangenheit, die Gegenwart und die Zukunft als simultanes Ganzes sieht. Totum simul (›alles auf einmal‹) nannte Boethius diese doppelte Zeitlichkeit. Auch die Erzähler der altnordischen Íslendingasögur (Isländersagas) nehmen eine totum simul Perspektive ein. Auf diese Weise steuern sie sowohl die Erzählung selbst als auch das Erleben des Publikums. Der Erzähler gestaltet somit aktiv die Erzählzeit, ein Konzept, dem sich vor allem Ricœur intensiv widmete. Bei der Gestaltung der Erzählzeit fällt auf, dass die Sagaerzähler trotz ihrer Allwissenheit selten auf sich aufmerksam machen und kaum spürbar in den Text eingreifen. Erst wenn man eine Saga bereits kennt, sieht man, wie sie vom Erzähler mit verschiedenen Mitteln gestaltet und gelenkt wird.We often perceive stories in a similar way to our real life: for a moment, man-made time is suspended, and we become part of a divine eternity in which we see the past, present, and future as a simultaneous whole. Boethius referred to this double temporality as totum simul (›all at once‹). The narrators of the Old Norse Íslendingasögur (family sagas) also adopt a totum simul perspective. In this way, they control both the narrative itself and the experience of the audience. The narrator thus actively shapes and curates the time of narration, a concept which Ricœur studied intensively. Despite their omniscience, the saga narrators rarely draw attention to themselves, and hardly intervene in a saga in a noticeable way. It is only when we are already familiar with a saga that it becomes possible to see how it has been shaped and directed by the narrator through various means