As the visual representation of an essentially oral text, Sylvia
Huot points out, the medieval illuminated manuscript has a
theatrical, performative quality. She perceives the tension between
implied oral performance and real visual artifact as a fundamental
aspect of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century poetics. In this
generously illustrated volume, Huot examines manuscript texts both
from the performance-oriented lyric tradition of chanson courtoise,
or courtly love lyric, and from the self-consciously literary
tradition of Old French narrative poetry. She demonstrates that the
evolution of the lyrical romance and dit, narrative poems which
incorporate thematic and rhetorical elements of the lyric, was
responsible for a progressive redefinition of lyric poetry as a
written medium and the emergence of an explicitly written literary
tradition uniting lyric and narrative poetics. Huot first
investigates the nature of the vernacular book in the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, analyzing organization, page layout,
rubrication, and illumination in a series of manuscripts. She then
describes the relationship between poetics and manuscript format in
specific texts, including works by widely read medieval authors
such as Guillaume de Lorris, Jean de Meun, and Guillaume de
Machaut, as well as by lesser-known writers including Nicole de
Margival and Watriquet de Couvin. Huot focuses on the writers'
characteristic modifications of lyric poetics; their use of writing
and performance as theme; their treatment of the poet as singer or
writer; and of the lady as implied reader or listener; and the ways
in which these features of the text were elaborated by scribes and
illuminators. Her readings reveal how medieval poets and
book-makers conceived their common project, and how they
distinguished their respective roles.
General
Imprint: |
Cornell University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
August 2019 |
First published: |
1987 |
Authors: |
Sylvia Huot
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152mm (L x W) |
Format: |
Paperback - Trade
|
Pages: |
390 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-5017-4666-6 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
1-5017-4666-9 |
Barcode: |
9781501746666 |
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