Story, Myth, and Celebration in Old French Narrative Poetry, 1050-1200

Description

Reprint 2015. Twelfth-century France has been described as the key to many of the most important developments of medieval civilization. Nowhere is this description more accurate than in the domain of poetic invention. The years 1050 to 1200 witnessed the development of a brilliant body of vernacular narrative that not only expressed the complexity of its own time but also bequeathed to posterity a wide gamut of creative possibilities. Although much has been written about the works of this period, Karl Uitti offers the first critically orientated overview of this poetry as poetry. In the sections devoted to the 'Songs of Alexis' and 'Roland he studies the narrative as it serves, in various ways, truths exterior to its own organization. These include the implications of Alexis' imitation of Christ and the way the 'Song of Roland' is history conceived in literary and poetic terms. Although a number of devices are examined, the poems are seen in terms of their total significance. The second part of the book, dedicate principally to the ceuvre of Chrétien de Troyes, discusses a new kind of poetry, poetry whose truth depends on the reader's submitting entirely to the internal coherence of each work - in a very meaningful sense the poem itself is the thing. What it says is specifically a matter of how it says it. No higher claim for the dignity of poetic activity has ever been made. Preface vii I. THE "LIFE OF SAINT ALEXIS" Introduction and Summary 3 Critical Perspectives and Background 8 The Mythic Paradigm 19 The Alexis Legend 27 Source and Text 42 Narrative Economy and Ambiguity 57 II. THE "SONG OF ROLAND" Introduction 65 Charlemagne 69 Empire 79 The Pagans 89 Authority and Being 102 Poetry and Value 115 III. CHRÉTIEN DE TROYES Introduction 128 Literary Consciousness 133 Matters of Technique 156 The Construction of Episodes and Scenes 173 Celebration 217 APPENDIX Jehan Bodel's "SONG OF THE SAXONS": Epic Binarism and Narrative Meaning 232 INDEX 245