Representing the Dead: Epitaph Fictions in Late-Medieval France

Description

Who am I when I am dead? Several late-medieval French writers used literary representation of the dead as a springboard for exploring the nature of human being. Death is a critical moment for identity definition: one is remembered, forgotten or, worse, misremembered. Works in prose and verse by authors from Alain Chartier to Jean Bouchet record characters' deaths, but what distinguishes them as epitaph fictions is not their commemoration of the deceased, so much as their interrogation of how, by whom, and to what purpose posthumous identity is constituted. Far from rigidly memorialising the dead, they exhibit a productive messiness in the processes by which identity is composed in the moment of its decomposition as a complex interplay between body, voice and text. The cemeteries, hospitals, temples and testaments of fifteenth- and early-sixteenth-century literature, from the "Belle Dame sans mercy" 'querelle' to 'Le Jugement poetic de l'honneur femenin', present a wealth of ambulant corpses, disembodied voices, animated effigies, martyrs for love and material echoes of the past which invite readers to approach epitaphic identity as a challenging question: here lies who, exactly? In its broadest context, this study casts fresh light on ideas of selfhood in medieval culture as well as on contemporary conceptions of the capacities and purposes of literary representation itself. List of Illustrations viii Acknowledgements x Note on quotations xi List of Abbreviations xii Chronology of epitaph fictions xiii Introduction: Representing the Dead 1 1. Framing Identity: 'je suis' and 'cy gist' 37 2. Identity and/as Echo: the ''Belle Dame' querelle' and 'Le Jardin de plaisance' 91 3. Dying to be told: storytelling and exemplarity 'selon le stile Jehan Bocace' 146 4. Placing the Dead: Cemeteries, Hospitals and Temples 201 Afterword: Illustrating the dead 265 Coda: Re-Member Me 305 Appendix: Early Editions of the 'Jardin de plaisance et fleur de rethorique' 307 Bibliography 308 Index 323