Stolen Song

Eliza Zingesser

Description

Stolen Song documents the act of cultural appropriation that created a founding moment for French literary history: the rescripting and domestication of troubadour song, a prestige corpus in the European sphere, as French. This book also documents the simultaneous creation of an alternative point of origin for French literary history-a body of faux-archaic Occitanizing songs.Most scholars would find the claim that troubadour poetry is the origin of French literature uncomplicated and uncontroversial. However, Stolen Song shows that the "Frenchness" of this tradition was invented, constructed, and confected by francophone medieval poets and compilers keen to devise their own literary history.Stolen Song makes a major contribution to medieval studies both by exposing this act of cultural appropriation as the origin of the French canon and by elaborating a new approach to questions of political and cultural identity. Eliza Zingesser shows that these questions, usually addressed on the level of narrative and theme, can also be fruitfully approached through formal, linguistic, and manuscript-oriented tools.

Sujets

• History of Europe
• French
• France

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 mars 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501747649
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

 STOLEN SONG

STOLENSONG HOWTHETROUBADOURS BECAME F RE NCH n

E l i z a Z i n g e s s e r

CORNELLUNIVERSITYPRESS Ithaca and London

Support for the publication of this book was provided by Columbia University through a Lenfest Junior Faculty Development Grant.

Copyright © 2020 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

First published 2020 by Cornell University Press

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Names: Zingesser, Eliza, 1984– author. Title: Stolen song : how the troubadours became French /  Eliza Zingesser. Description: Ithaca [New York] : Cornell University Press,  2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019017308 (print) | LCCN 2019019425  (ebook) | ISBN 9781501747649 (pdf ) | ISBN  9781501747632 (epub/mobi) | ISBN 9781501747571 |  ISBN 9781501747571 (cloth) Subjects: LCSH: Troubadour songs—Influence. | Literature,  Medieval—Provençal influences. | Poetry, Medieval—  History and criticism. | Provençal poetry—History and  criticism. | French literature—To 1500—History and  criticism. | Troubadours. | Quotations in literature—  History and criticism. Classification: LCC PC3304 (ebook) | LCC PC3304 .Z55  2020 (print) | DDC 809.1/4—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019017308 Cover photo: Alms purse, mid14th century. Musée des Tissus et Musée des Arts décoratifs de Lyon. © Lyon, MTMAD–Sylvain Pretto.

For my mother

  Co nt e nt s

List of Illustrationsix Acknowledgmentsxi Abbreviations and Siglaxiii

Introduction

1. Of Birds and Madmen: Occitan Songs in French Songbooks 2. Keeping Up with the French: Jean Renart’s Francophile Empire in the Roman de la rose 3. Birdsong and the Edges of the Empire: Gerbert de Montreuil’sRoman de la violette 4. From Beak to Quill: Troubadour Lyric in Richard de Fournival’sBestiaire d’amour 5. The Rustic Troubadours: Occitanizing Lyrics in France Epilogue

Works Cited213 Index231

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  I l lu s t r at i o n s

0.1 Frenchlanguage “Tuit demandent k’est devengue amor” labeled as a “sor [sic]piv”nioethteinrgmaoinf Burgerbibliothek Bern, Cod. 389, fol. 234r. 0.2 Gautier d’Épinal’s “Puis qu’en moi” (RS 1208) labeled as a “son poitevin” in BnF fr. 12786, fol. 47v. 1.1 Table of contents in BnF MS fr. 844 showing the (unmarked) transition from trouvère songs to troubadour songs on fol. Er. 1.2 Table of contents (fol. 2v) in which second Occitan “section” of fr. 20050 appears (Bernart de Ventadorn’s “Can vei la lauzeta mover” is the eighth entry). 1.3 Transition fromoïllyrics to first Occitan “section” in fr. 20050 (fol. 81r). The first troubadour song is Bernart de Ventadorn’s “Ab joi mou lo vers,” at the bottom of the folio. 1.4 The beginning of “Poc ve gent,” described as “li sons derue del home sauuage” in BnF MS fr. 844, fol. 190r. 5.1 Occitanizing motet “Li jalous par tout sunt fustat / Tuit cil qui sunt enamourat / Veritatem” as edited by Tischler. 5.2 Occitanizing motet “Onques n’ama loiaument / Mout m’abelist / Flos filius eius” as edited by Tischler. 5.3 Montpellier, Faculté de Médecine, MS H 196, fol. 152r. 5.4 Montpellier, Faculté de Médecine, MS H 196, fol. 151v.

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