The role of poetry in the transmission and shaping of knowledge in late medieval France. Covering the period from the late thirteenth to the early sixteenth century, Poetry, Knowledge, and Community examines the role of poetry in French culture in transmitting and shaping knowledge. The volume reveals the interplay between poet, text, and audience, and explores the key dynamics of later medieval French poetry and of the communities in which it was produced. Essays in both English and French are organised into three inter-related sections, "Learned Poetry/ Poetry and Learning", "Poetry or Prose?", and "Poetic Communities", and address both canonical and less well-known French and Occitan verse literature, together with a wide range of complementary subjectareas. The international cast of contributors to the volume includes many of the best-known scholars in the field: the introductory essay is by Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet (Universite de Paris IV, Sorbonne), and keynote essays are provided by David F. Hult (University of California, Berkeley), Michel Zink (College de France), and Nancy Freeman Regalado (New York University). Edited by REBECCA DIXON (University of Manchester) and FINN E. SINCLAIR (University of Cambridge), with Adrian Armstrong (University of Manchester), Sylvia Huot (University of Cambridge), and Sarah Kay (University of Princeton). CONTRIBUTORS: Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Mishtooni Bose, Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet, Rebecca Dixon, Thelma Fenster, Denis Hue, David Hult, Stephanie Kamath, Deborah McGrady, Amandine Mussou, Nancy Freeman Regalado, Jennifer Saltzstein, Finn E. Sinclair, Lori J. Walters, David Wrisley, Michel Zink

The question of what medieval "courtliness" was, both as a literary influence and as a historical "reality", is debated in this volume. The concept of courtliness forms the theme of this collection of essays. Focused on works written in the Francophone world between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, they examine courtliness as both an historical privilege and aliterary ideal, and as a concept that operated on and was informed by complex social and economic realities. Several essays reveal how courtliness is subject to satire or is the subject of exhortation in works intended for noblemen and women, not to mention ambitious bourgeois. Others, more strictly literary in their focus, explore the witty, thoughtful and innovative responses of writers engaged in the conscious process of elevating the new vernacular culture through the articulation of its complexities and contradictions. The volume as a whole, uniting philosophical, theoretical, philological, and cultural approaches, demonstrates that medieval "courtliness" is an ideal that fascinates us to this day. It is thus a fitting tribute to the scholarship of Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner, in its exploration of the prrofound and wide-ranging ideas that define her contribution to the field. DANIEL E O'SULLIVAN is Associate Professor of French at the University of Mississippi; LAURIE SHEPHARD is Associate Professor of Italian at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Contributors: Peter Haidu, Donald Maddox, Michel-Andre Bossy, Kristin Burr, Joan Tasker Grimbert, David Hult, Virgine Greene, Logan Whalen, Evelyn Birge Vitz, Elizabeth W. Poe, Daniel E. O'Sullivan, William Schenck, Nadia Margolis, Laine Doggett, E. Jane Burns, Nancy FreemanRegalado, Laurie Shephard, Sarah White