Academic literature on the topic 'Provençal poetry'

The Provençaie poet Frédéric Mistral (1830-1914) is remembered for his attempt at revitalizing the Provençal language. He was one of the main founders of the literary academy named Félibrige, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1904. Although his poetical works have been extensively studied, the political inspiration which pervades a great part of his writings has not so far received the attention it deserves. This article shows how profoundly Mistral was influenced by the ideal of independence and liberty which was a distinctive feature of the European XIXth century, and how his patriotic enthusiasm is reflected in his poetry.

The poetry of Arab-Andalusian poets is a bridge between Eastern and Western culture. Its roots date back to the sixth century, when the first Bedouin songs resounded in the limitless areas of the Arabian desert. His echoes resounded in the poetry of Provençal troubadours. Traces of this poetry can be found in the works of Renaissance poets, including Petrarc. Elements of Andalusian poetry were also visible in the poetry of the Spanish court since the 16th century. The characteristic poetic forms still appeared in 20th century poetry – at least one of the most outstanding Spanish poets, Federico Garcia Llorca, reached for it. Its greatest prosperity was in the 10th andd 11th centuries, and among the outstanding Andalusian poets were both men and women. The main motive of this poetry was unfulfilled love, which remained the dominant element of modern European court poetry.

RESUMO: Neste artigo, busca-se apresentar e confirmar as seis marcas da literatura e da cultura árabe, do período do Emirado da Sicília para o nascimento da literatura italiana no Duecento, período que remete a Scuola Siciliana. Os objetivos são comprovar a inserção das seis marcas utilizadas por Ibn Hamdis, mas que a partir do processo de interculturalidade e transferência cultural, e a adoção dos seus conceitos foi possível comprovar as contribuições/heranças árabes para o nascimento da Literatura Italiana, além de refutar a hipótese de que a poesia lírica amorosa ter sido originada da Literatura Provençal, assim como, colocar a Literatura Árabe Clássica no mesmo pé de igualdade das Literaturas Clássicas: Grega e Latina para a fundação da Literatura Italiana no mapa literário.Palavras-Chave: Poesia Lírica. Poesia Sarcástica. Scuola Siciliana. Duecento. Interculturalidade. ABSTRACT: In questo articolo cerca di presentare e confermare le sei marche della Letteratura e Cultura Araba nel periodo dell’Emirato di Sicilia per il nascimento della Letteratura Italiana nel Duecento, periodo che fa riferimento alla Scuola Siciliana. Gli obbiettivi sono verificare le inserzioni delle sei marche usati per Ibn Hamdis, ma che attraverso del processo d’interculturalità e di trasferimento culturale ed adozione dei suoi concetti fu possibile dimostrare i contributi arabi per il nascimento della Letteratura Italiana, oltre di rifiutare l’ipotesi di che la poesia lirica amorosa fu originata della Letteratura Provenzale, così come a mettere la Letteratura Classica Araba nella stessa egualità delle Letterature Classiche: Greca e Latina per la fondazione della Letteratura Italiana nel cammino letterario.Parole-Chiave: Poesia Lirica. Poesia Sarcastica. Scuola Siciliana. Duecento. Interculturalità. ABSTRACT: In this article, we will intend to present and confirm the six signatures of Arab literature and culture, from the Sicily emirate to the birth of the Italian Literature during the Duecento, the age of Scuola Siciliana. Our main goal is to prove the insertion of the six signatures used by Ibn Hamdis. Through the process of interculturality and cultural transfer as well as the adoption of his concepts, it was possible to inform the Arab contributions and heritages tot the birth of Italian literature; on the other side, we want to refute the hypothesis that the lyric poetry had its origin in the Provençal poetry. Furthermore, we intend to match the Classical Arab literature with Greek and Latin literatures regarding of the foundation of Italian literature in the studies of literature.Keywords: Lyric poetry. Satirical poetry. Scuola Siciliana. Duecento. interculturality.

ABSTRACTThis article explores the role of music in nineteenth- and twentieth-century accounts of medieval Italian literature and its relation to the construction of Italian national identity both during and long after the Risorgimento. Tracing music's role in the writings of Giosuè Carducci, Vincenzo De Bartholomaeis and Aurelio Roncaglia, it argues that music somewhat paradoxically became entangled with Italy's literary identity even as scholars worked to extricate the peninsula's most renowned poetry from its grasp. In the realm of ‘popular’ poetry, Italianness depends on the presence of music, which serves as a marker of that poetry's popular origins. In contrast, music's absence from the realm of ‘high-art’ poetry was essential to the construction of an Italian tradition independent of and superior to its French and Provençal predecessors.

In the study of mediaeval European literature, especially that of France and Germany, the terms chanson de femme and Frauenlied have come to be conventional designations for a distinct type of poem—more broadly defined than a genre: a female-voice love-lyric in a popular rather than a courtly mode. To use the language of Pierre Bec, femininity here is “textual” rather than “genetic.” Most of these “women’s songs” are attributed to male authors, although there has been a tendency to trace the type back to preliterate songs actually composed by women. Goethe, Jakob Grimm, and others saw in the early German and Balkan Frauenlieder and Frauenstrophen the traces of “das älteste Volkspoesie.” The use of this terminology to designate a lyric in the female voice—irrespective of its authorship—goes back to Alfred Jeanroy, at the end of the last century, who defined chanson de femme as a woman’s monologue, usually sad, relating to love (158). Theodor Frings, whose description of the Frauenlied is probably the one that has been the most influential, makes clear that it is a universal, not merely a mediaeval, type. Although he focusses on Middle High German, Provençal, and Old French poetry, he includes examples ranging from Greek to Chinese.

EZRA’S CAGE”. BETWEEN POETRY AND POLITICSEzra Pound 1885–1975 was, next to Thomas Stearns Eliot, the most prominent American poet of modernist. He was considered the creator of vorticism and imagism — modern trends in art and world culture. In his works he reached to different eras and cultural trends. He was as well fascinated by medieval Provençal, Spanish and Italian literature, and Japanese art of haiku. On his work also had an impact scholasticism, Confucianism and Far East literature. In addition to poetry, Pound was also involved in literary criticism, painting and sculpture, he wrote historiosophical es­says and dramas. The greatest fame brought him, however, written for many years, „Canto”. During his stay in the British Isles he also dealt with politics and economics. He was considered a supporter of the theory of Social Credit of Hugh Douglas Clifford, aBritish engineer and economic theorist. In the early twenties Pound went to Italy. Here he became fascinated with fascism and the person of Benitto Musollini. In his works including his poetic works appeared clear fascist and anti-Semitic accents. He criticized Jewish international financiers and banking critique of usury. During World War II he gave propaganda „talks” in the Italian radio. He praised the organization of the fascist state and fascism as an idea, and at the same time warned the threat from international Jewish conspiracy. His views meant that he was accused of collaboration and treason. He was arrested and imprisoned in the US prison camp near Genoa. He spent almost amonth in aclosed cage. During his stay in the camp he had nervous breakdown. After transportation to the United States for many years he was locked out in hospital for mentally ill. After leaving the hospital, he returned to public space. Still creative, he was nominated for the most prestigious literary awards. His works have been translated into many languages around the world, including Polish. He died in Italy in 1975.

Who was andré Jolles? born in den helder in 1874; raised in amsterdam; in his youth a significant player in the literary Movement of the Nineties (Beweging van Negentig), whose organ was the Dutch cultural weekly De Kroniek; a close friend of Aby M. Warburg's and Johan Huizinga's—Jolles studied art history at Freiburg beginning in 1902 and then taught art history in Berlin, archaeology and cultural history in occupied Ghent during World War I, and Netherlandic and comparative literature at Leipzig from 1919 until shortly before his death, in 1946. A man of extraordinary intellectual range—his publications include essays on early Florentine painting, a dissertation on the aesthetics of Vitruvius, a habilitation thesis on Egyptian-Mycenaean ceremonial vessels, literary letters on ancient Greek art, and essays in German and Dutch on folklore, theater, dance, Boccaccio, Dante, Goethe, Zola, Ibsen, Strindberg, and Provençal and Renaissance Italian poetry—he was also an amateur playwright and an outspoken champion of modern trends in dramatic art and stage design. To his friends, he could be something of an intellectual midwife, helping Warburg to formulate what would become a signature notion, the “pathos formula,” and Huizinga to conceive The Waning of the Middle Ages (1919). Jolles's chief work, the one for which he is best known, is Einfache Formen (1930; “Simple Forms”), a collection of lectures he had delivered in German at Leipzig in 1927-28 and revised.

AbstractBetween Erich Auerbach and Walter Benjamin, there existed a remarkable friendship, which on the one hand manifested itself as an unobtrusive disputation, and yet which on the other hand could be considered an unintended collaboration toward an old-new ideal of philology. Auerbach claims that with the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, Western European literature reached the climax of the figuralism that Auerbach, if belatedly, wants to bring to the fore. Benjamin, in contrast, finds energy for the revolution in the surrealistic love that traces back not to Dante, but to the Provençal poetry which Auerbach regards merely as preliminary to Danteʼs literary achievement. In his The Origin of German Tragic Drama, Benjamin highlights the concept of creatureliness, whose significance for his philosophy of history is no less than that of justice. Auerbach, for his part, does not find its expression in the Germany of the 17th century, but in the France of the 16th century, namely in the work of Michel de Montaigne. However, Montaigneʼs creatureliness is rooted in sermo humilis, which is best embodied in the story of Peter who denied his Lord Jesus Christ three times. By contrast, German creatureliness detects its dissolution in the idea of natural theatre that Benjamin locates in the work of Franz Kafka. Sermo humilis is the perfection of figuralism, whereas the idea of natural theatre means reversal of allegory. The perfected figuralism and the reversed allegory cooperate in the idea of the philology of instead (Philologie des Stattdessen), whose task it is to make bygone the futility of worldly things.

The globalization of communication in ‘major’ languages has become incompatible with the claims made by the other languages. Many minor, ‘lesser used’ languages were formerly marginalized and ignored because of their incompatibility with national policies; more recently, while acknowledged by specialists, they still have had to struggle to be more publicly recognized as vehicles for important literature, and also in some cases as actually existing. Having the Nobel Prize for Literature awarded is not necessarily effective: within years of Frédéric Mistral’s Nobel prize few people would have acknowledged the existence of Provençal as a language. One potentially more profitable means of achieving recognition is through being translated into better-known languages. The paper will look at two examples. First: Slovene, the language of just 2 million people in Europe; a language with an established literature; officially a national language; but not generally known. Promotion through translation has been extraordinarily active: great efforts have been made to translate all the major works of literature into ‘major’ languages. Among the results: an enormous translation factory, where sometimes quality is sacrificed to quantity; and very high pay for translators. Second, at the other end of the ‘status-as-a-language’ spectrum: Lakhian, which very few people recognize as a ‘language’ rather than a dialect; and yet one that received huge (if temporary) recognition when the one person who wrote what is recognized as ‘serious’ literature in Lakhian, Ondra Lysohorsky, had his poetry translated by Boris Pasternak and W.H. Auden.

A tenor de lo que sucede con la lírica trovadoresca en relación a los condados catalanes o a la corona castellana, se hace necesario replantear la naturaleza del vínculo que los trovadores occitanos establecieron con Navarra. Durante años la crítica ha minimizado o negado la existencia de tal vínculo y se ha mostrado poco proclive a reflexionar acerca de esta supuesta ausencia. El objetivo del presente estudio es reevaluar la presencia del reino pirenaico en la poesía trovadoresca occitana. Para ello, se parte de un nuevo vaciado del corpus conservado y se lleva a cabo una lectura pormenorizada de los textos. Eso permite refrescar los listados de alusiones a Navarra hechos hasta el momento. A continuación se examinan en profundidad los condicionamientos sociales, históricos y culturales que enmarcan dichas alusiones. Ello implica la contextualización, datación y justificación de los poemas seleccionados. De ahí el enfoque sociohistórico, completado con un análisis formal filológico que permite comprender mejor la recepción textual. Las conclusiones son claras. Navarra está presente en la lírica de los trovadores. Sin ser una presencia tan llamativa como la de otros reinos vecinos, la cincuentena de composiciones que se vinculan a la corte navarra habla por sí misma: los textos citan fechos de la historia pirenaica y de su política, con referencia destacada a Sancho VI y más denostada a su hijo, Sancho VII; alaban la presencia y critican la ausencia de valores corteses y morales en sus cortes, especialmente de la largueza; mencionan aspectos de su religión y, sobre todo, se hacen eco de la importancia del peregrinaje a Santiago; describen rasgos llamativos de su geografía y de sus gentes, etc. Su presencia no es meramente pasiva: llegó a ejercer una labor de mecenazgo, regio y señorial, y dio pie a una producción propia, pues, tomando Navarra como eje, se conformó un núcleo de cultivadores y protectores de poesía trovadoresca en lengua occitana y galaico-portuguesa que incluyó las familias de los Haro, los Cameros, los Azagra, los Ladrón y otras. Todo ello anima a corregir las apreciaciones hechas por la crítica sobre la cuestión y obliga a insertar definitivamente al olvidado reino de Navarra en el rayonnement de la lírica trovadoresca de los siglos XII y XIII.
It seems necessary to reconsider the kind of relationship the troubadours established with the kingdom of Navarre. For years the experts have minimized the existence of these ties, showing no interest in analyzing the absence of Navarre. This study aims to reassess the presence of the Pyrenean crown in the Occitan poetry of the troubadours. The starting point is a new screening of the corpus preserved. Afterwards, new and detailed readings of the chosen texts take place. This helps to renovate the list of allusions to Navarre known until today. At the same time, we make a thorough examination of the social, historical and cultural conditions surrounding these allusions. Therefore, it’s indispensable to contextualize, to date and to justify the selected poems. A formal philological analysis completes this socio-historical approach, for it allows us to better understand the text reception. Conclusion: Navarre is present in the lyric of the troubadours. It may not be a remarkable presence, but more than fifty texts are linked to the Navarrese court. The texts remark facts and events related to its History and Politics, with special appraisingly references to Sancho VI and not so appraisingly to his son Sancho VII. They applaud the existence of moral and courtly values in the kingdom, and they criticize its absence -chiefly largesse. They take into account different aspects of its religion, and are testimony of the importance that the pilgrimage to Santiago gained. They describe the most interesting features of its geography and its people, etcetera. In fact, the presence of Navarre in the troubadour literature is not passive. The court of the king and those of his lords acted as patrons of the troubadours. What’s more, a circle of poets and protectors developed around Navarre. The Haro, Cameros, Azagra, Ladrón families and others were part of this circle, all of them interested in the Occitan and Galician poetry. Now we can correct all previous assessments. We have to introduce in a definite way the forgotten crown of Navarre in the rayonnement that achieved the lyric of the Occitan troubadours during the XII and XIII century.

The PhD entitled "Troubadour Lyrics in the Crown of Aragon: case study" offers a detailed census of all those troubadours for whom a link has been proposed with the Crown of Aragon, with fundamental information about the reigns of contact –those who welcomed and promoted, precisely, the Occitan lyric; that is, the reigns of Alphonse I the Chaste, Peter I the Catholic, James I the Conqueror and Peter II the Great-, the compositions that underpin their inclusion in this census and data related to their own pieces. Some issues that exemplify the Occitan case in the Crown of Aragon, and which we have defined as "cases", are, for example, the analysis of the "Catalan" word in lyrical troubadour, an analysis in courtesy terms, more than not in geographic terms. Undoubtedly, the figure of Peire Vidal as the greatest exponent of the lyrical in the times of Alphonse I is one of the most important cases in this PhD, given the magnitude of his work and the long distance that the same troubadour does all around most significant courts of the moment. In this sense, we offer a proposal for the dating of his work related to the Crown of Aragon and, at the same time, a re-reading of it. Finally, the last case exposed to the PhD deals with the figure of Peter II the Great, as a patron. In this case, the image of the monarch, often in the shadow of the golden age of his father, James I, has not been appropriately valued or, at least, his work as a patron was not considered, as we said, which could well resemble that of his great-grandfather, Alphonse I the Chaste
La tesi titulada “Lírica trobadoresca a la Corona d’Aragó: estudi de casos” ofereix un cens detallat de tots aquells trobadors per als quals s’ha proposat algun vincle amb la Corona d’Aragó, amb informació fonamental sobre els regnats de contacte –aquells que van acollir i promoure, precisament, la lírica occitana; això és, els regnats d’Alfons I el Cast, Pere I el Catòlic, Jaume I el Conqueridor i Pere II el Gran-, les composicions que fonamenten llur inclusió en aquest cens i dades relatives a les pròpies peces. Algunes qüestions que exemplifiquen el cas occità a la Corona d’Aragó, i que hem definit com a “casos”, són, per exemple, l’anàlisi del mot “català” en la lírica trobadoresca, una anàlisi en termes cortesos, més que no pas en termes geogràfics. Sens dubte, la figura de Peire Vidal com a màxim exponent de la lírica en temps d’Alfons I és un dels casos més rellevants en aquesta tesi, donada la magnitud de la seva obra i el llarg recorregut que el mateix trobador fa arreu de les corts més significatives del moment; en aquest sentit, oferim una proposta de datació de l’obra relacionada amb la Corona d’Aragó i, alhora, una relectura de la mateixa. Finalment, el darrer cas exposat a la tesi tracta la figura de Pere II el Gran, en tant que mecenes; en aquest cas, la imatge del monarca, sovint a l’ombra de l’època daurada del seu pare, Jaume I, no ha estat prou valorada o, si més no, no se n’havia contemplat la tasca de mecenes, com dèiem, que bé podria assemblar-se a la del seu besavi, Alfons I el Cast

In this thesis, a literary historic path on the development of the lyric expression of courtly love will be created. The path will take us from the Provence through Germany and Sicily, and up to the Tuscany of the thirteen's century. The poetic characteristics of the hohe Minne and dolce stil novo will be particularly highlighted in order to facilitate the comprehension of their similarities and differences. It is understood that it will not be possible to offer a complete interpretation of the two lyric expressions. Rather, this thesis wishes to offer a basis for the development of further comparative studies between the German and Italian lyric expressions that were inspired by the Provencal courtly love. As representatives of the evolution of the poetry of love in Germany and Italy, Walther von der Vogelweide and Guido Cavalcanti were chosen for the innovative character of their poetry and the artistic quality of the results they achieved.

Aquesta tesi presenta i estructura els resultats obtinguts a partir de l’anàlisi filològica del corpus líric dels tres grans trobadors que es relacionen amb el motiu literari del cor menjat en els àmbits occità, francès i alemany: Guillem de Cabestany (ca. 1165–ca. 1212), el Châtelain de Coucy (ca. 1167–1203) i Reinmar von Brennenberg († ca. 1276), amb la finalitat de connectar les seves composicions amb les dades biogràfiques que ens n’han pervingut i les diverses reelaboracions del relat llegendari que protagonitzen (la Vida, Le Roman du Châtelain de Coucy et de la dame de Fayel i la Bremberger-Ballade, respectivament). Aquest procediment, que posa especial atenció a les diferents accepcions metafòriques del cor en la lírica tractada, ens permet definir i contrastar els elements que caracteritzen la tradició trobadoresca i la diversificació de la llegenda en cada territori, i el procés segons el qual els poetes acaben esdevenint, ells mateixos, protagonistes de la llegenda del cor menjat, entrellaçant-se, així, realitat i ficció.
This dissertation presents and structures the results obtained from the philological analysis of the lyrical corpus of the three great troubadours that are related to the literary motif of the eaten heart in Occitan, French and German areas: Guillem de Cabestany (ca. 1165–ca. 1212), Châtelain de Coucy (ca. 1167–1203) and Reinmar von Brennenberg († ca. 1276), in order to connect their compositions with their preserved biographical data and the various reworkings of the legend they are involved with (Vida, Le Roman du Châtelain de Coucy et de la dame de Fayel and Bremberger-Ballade). This procedure, which pays special attention to the different metaphorical meanings of the heart in the analysed poetry, allows us to define and contrast the elements that characterize the troubadour tradition, the diversification of the legend in every territory and the process according to which the poets end up becoming protagonists of the legend of the eaten heart, thus intertwining reality and fiction.

RésuméLa notoriété de Marcel Pagnol n’est plus à attester, mais force est de reconnaître que les universitaires ne manifestent généralement pas de considération pour lui. Ce magicien des mots, ce conteur héritier de la tradition orale provençale, joue avec virtuosité de la parole, et sa création est le résultat d’interférences littéraires. Les différentes perspectives de l’œuvre de Marcel Pagnol, qui prend sa source dans sa formation classique, ont déterminé cette recherche, laquelle se concentre sur une analyse de certains de ses écrits. Ainsi vise-t-elle à une reconnaissance de son capital symbolique et de son apport à la littérature. Le classicisme qui imprègne l’éducation qu’il a reçue, a orienté l’ensemble de ses réalisations littéraires, théâtrales et cinématographiques; en conséquence, il en a déterminé sa réception, car le caractère de son œuvre, enrichie par l’héritage antique et le patrimoine culturel provençal, est d’avoir atteint l’universel. Ce travail porte sur les aspects de ses écrits qui reflètent non seulement l’éducation, mais surtout la capacité de l’auteur d’utiliser des genres différents tels que la bucolique et ses ramifications qui vont de la poésie au roman et au théâtre, puis au cinéma avec lequel il entretiendra des rapports étroits et complémentaires. Influencé par la musique et par la culture latine et provençale, Marcel Pagnol est sorti des sentiers battus de la littérature de son époque, en mettant son originalité créatrice au service de la poésie, de la prose, du théâtre et du cinéma
AbstractThe notoriety of Marcel Pagnol is no longer to be attested to, but it is clear academics do not generally show any consideration for him. This magician of words, this storyteller heir to the Provencal oral tradition, plays as a virtuose with speech, and his creation is the result of literary interferences. The different perspectives of the work of Marcel Pagnol, which has its source in his classical training, have determined this research, which focuses on analysis of some of his writings. Thus, this aims at recognizing his symbolic capital and contribution to literature. The classicism that permeates the education he received has guided all his literary, theatrical and cinematographic achievements; consequently, it determined his reception because the character of his work, enriched by the ancient heritage and the Provençal cultural patrimony, is to have reached universality. This thesis focuses on aspects of his creations, which reflect not only his education, but especially the ability of the author to use different genres such as the pastoral and its ramifications, which range from poetry to novel and to theater, then to film with which he will maintain close and complementary relations. Influenced by Music, Latin and Provençal culture, Marcel Pagnol diverged from the beaten track of literature of his time, by putting his creative originality at the service of poetry, prose, theater and film

Cette thèse entend proposer une analyse originale du phénomène connu mais polémique que constitue l’introduction de la notion d’auteur dans la littérature de langue française au Moyen Âge. Il s’agira d’essayer de contribuer à repenser la signification poétique, culturelle et historique de ce moment particulier où l’auteur – c’est-à-dire l’attribution d’un texte ou d’une série de textes à un nom propre donné – s’est imposé pour la première fois comme un critère structurant et primordial dans la production et surtout la transmission des textes de langue française dans les manuscrits médiévaux. Usant du concept foucaldien de fonction-auteur, des théories de la réception et du paratexte, ainsi que de la « Nouvelle Codicologie », l’approche déployée ici aborde l’auteur en tant que construction textuelle et éditoriale signifiante au sein d’un corpus de recueils littéraires de langue d’oïl où la volonté de construire des figures d’auteurs par les éditeurs de ces ouvrages est à la fois claire et indiscutable. Partie à l’origine d’un examen systématique de la tradition manuscrite d’environ 320 noms de poètes de langue d’oïl actifs entre 1100 et 1340, l’analyse se concentre principalement sur 25 manuscrits contenant des collections auctoriales dédiées à 17 poètes, dont le nom est associé avec insistance à une série de textes copiés les uns à la suite des autres. Parmi ces auteurs, on trouve les célèbres Chrétien de Troyes, Rutebeuf et Adam de la Halle, mais aussi Philippe de Thaon, frère Angier, Guillaume le clerc de Normandie, Pierre de Beauvais, Philippe de Remi, Gautier le Leu, Jacques de Baisieux, Geoffroi de Paris, Jean de l’Escurel, Baudouin de Condé, Jean de Condé, Watriquet de Couvin et Nicole Bozon. La présente analyse tente de nuancer et de dépasser la lecture répandue selon laquelle ces manuscrits à collections auctoriales individuelles constitueraient, de concert avec les fameuses biographies de troubadours et les chansonniers de trouvères, souvent présentés comme leurs « ancêtres », les débuts balbutiants d’une vaste épopée de l’avènement de l’« auteur moderne », annonciateur tout à la fois d’une « subjectivité littéraire », d’une « esthétique autobiographique » et d’un contrôle accru des auteurs historiques, réels, sur la transmission manuscrite de leurs propres œuvres. Tout en offrant une mise à jour contextuelle et matérielle – données originales à l’appui – concernant la dimension collaborative de la genèse de ces recueils et le caractère modulaire de leur transmission, on montrera qu’ils sont le fruit d’un dialogue nourri avec le modèle livresque latin et pluriséculaire de l’auctor – qui est à la fois un auteur, un garant de la vérité (auctoritas) et un ambassadeur prestigieux de la grammaire –, ainsi qu’avec l’antique exemple d’œuvres dites « biobibliographiques », qui décrivent la vie et l’œuvre d’auteurs illustres et exemplaires, comme le fait le De viris illustribus de saint Jérôme. Les manuscrits étudiés usent à répétition de ce modèle ancestral de la biobibliographie (« la vie et l’œuvre ») pour mettre en scène un face-à-face entre auteurs de langue d’oïl et auctores. Or cette mise en regard s’avère d’autant plus intéressante que, contrairement à ce qu’on observe pour les troubadours, considérés très tôt comme de nouveaux auctores illustres en langue vulgaire, dignes de cautionner l’excellence de la poésie et de la grammaire d’oc, elle ne prend pas uniquement, en français, la forme d’une imitation ou d’une adaptation de modèles anciens. En fait, l’analogie avec les auctores donne lieu à des exercices savants, autoréflexifs et parfois ironiques sur la fabrique éditoriale, poétique et épistémologique du type d’auteur et d’auctoritas qui peuvent (ou non) être bâtis dans des recueils en langue d’oïl, idiome qui était encore dépourvu à l’époque (1100-1340) de véritable grammaire, et où fleurissaient en revanche les genres littéraires de divertissement comme le roman, où l’on explorait la porosité des frontières entre le vrai et le faux, entre le bien et le mal. Plus qu’un pas pris dans la direction d’un sacre inéluctable, l’« invention de l’auteur français » à laquelle procèdent les recueils étudiés est un geste pétri des incertitudes et des interrogations de ceux qui le posaient, et qui en mesuraient la profonde vanité au regard de Dieu et de la mort.
This thesis aims to provide an original analysis on an often studied yet controversial issue: the introduction of the notion of authorship in French language medieval literature. The objective here is to reconsider the poetic, cultural, and historical signification of the particular moment when the author – understood here as the attribution of a text or of a series of texts to a proper noun – first became an essential structuring criteria in the production, and more importantly, in the transmission of French-language texts through medieval manuscripts. Using Michel Foucault’s concept of fonction-auteur, theories of reception and of the paratext, as well as New Codicology, this thesis will consider the author as a signifying textual and editorial construction within several literary collections written in langue d’oïl, in which the editors clearly and undeniably sought to construct figures of the author. Based on the systematic examination of the manuscript tradition of approximately 320 names of langue d’oïl poets, who were active between 1100 and 1340, this analysis will focus primarily on 25 manuscripts containing authorial collections dedicated to 17 poets, whose names are strongly associated with a series of texts that are copied one after the other. Among these authors are the famous Chrétien de Troyes, Rutebeuf and Adam de la Halle, as well as Philippe de Thaon, frère Angier, Guillaume le clerc de Normandie, Pierre de Beauvais, Philippe de Remi, Gautier le Leu, Jacques de Baisieux, Geoffroi de Paris, Jean de l’Escurel, Baudouin de Condé, Jean de Condé, Watriquet de Couvin and Nicole Bozon. This thesis attempts to question and ultimately discard the common conception according to which the manuscripts containing individual authorial collections constituted – along with the famous biographies of the troubadours and the chansonniers of the trouvères, often considered as their « ancestors » – the timid beginnings of the rise of the « modern author », himself a prequel to « literary subjectivity », « autobiographical aesthetics » and an ever stronger control exerted by actual empirical authors over the manuscript transmission of their own works. While offering contextual and material updates – supported by original data – regarding the collaborative process that went into the creation of these collections, as well as the modular aspect of their reception, this thesis will show that these collections were formed through a rich dialogue with the centuries-old latin model of the auctor – who is at once an author, a guardian of truth (auctoritas) and a prestigious ambassador of grammar –, as well as with the antique tradition of « biobibliographical » texts, dealing with the life and works of famous and exemplary authors, such as De viris illustribus, by saint Jerome. The manuscripts studied here repeatedly used this ancient model of biobibliography (« the life and works ») in order to stage a competition between authors writing in langue d’oïl and auctores. This confrontation is particularly interesting when one considers that – contrary to what may be observed in the case of the troubadours, who were quickly seen as the new illustrious vernacular auctores, worthy of vouching for the excellency of langue d’oc poetry and grammar – , we are not simply dealing here with a form of imitation or adaptation in French of ancient models. In fact, the analogy with auctores allows for autoreflexive and sometimes ironic learned exercises, dealing with the editorial, poetic and epistemological creation of the type of author and auctoritas in manuscript collections in langue d’oïl, an idiom which at the time (1100-1340) lacked a true grammar, yet was used in various literary genres meant for entertainment, such as romance, which explored the evanescent barriers between truth and lies, good and evil. Rather than a small step in the long path towards an inevitable coronation, the « invention of the French author » undertaken by these collections constitutes an action that reflects all the uncertainty and interrogations of those who undertook it, while being fully convinced of its utter vanity in the eyes of God and death.

In the present article, the author briefly retraces the stages of Dante’s reception in Ukraine, then analyzes the main Ukrainian translations of Dante’s Divine Comedy in the 20th-21st century, namely those by Petro Karmans’kyj, Jevhen Drob’jazko and Maksym Stricha. The author briefly dwells on Karmans’kyj’s translation, highlighting the flaws already noted by H. Kočur and M. Stricha. Then the author analyzes Drob’jazko’s and Stricha’s translations, the only two complete Ukrainian translations of the Divine Comedy published so far. The author particularly compares the translators’ approaches to potential difficulties (e.g., the rendering of verse lines or single words in Latin, the verse lines in Provencal in Purgatory, song XXVI, ll. 141-147; the translations of some characters’ names, especially speaking names), and highlights the merits of their long and accurate work, which finally allowed Ukrainian readers to truly experience the Italian national poet, on one side, and filled the gap that divided Ukrainian literature from the neighboring Polish and Russian literature, on the other.

Abstract This third part analyzes the condition of lovesickness, or amor hereos, a psychosomatic disease believed to affect predominantly aristocratic men who had a melancholic complexion or acquired one on account of their erotic illness. This condition received a lot of attention from medical professionals because it was believed to engender other melancholic diseases, including depression, madness, and if it went untreated, death. After the introduction of Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine, Constantine the African’s Viaticum, and Bernard of Gordon’s Lilium medicinae into European culture, lovesickness became a favorite topic in medical commentary and in literature. Representations of lovesick characters abound in early medieval aesthetic expression throughout Europe, including in Provençal lyrical poetry, Italian Dolce stil novo, Andalusian kharjas, and Galician-Portuguese various poetic genres. In King Alfonso’s Cantigas, amor hereos acquires new levels of meaning because the foremost effect of lovesickness was an overvaluation of the object of desire. Since most lovesick victims had previously been fervent devotees of the Virgin Mary, the overvaluation of the loved one usually represents a displacement of their devotion for Mary onto the beloved. In this context, therefore, amor hereos is a condition that has a direct effect on the body and the mind, as well as on the soul.

The proposed research summarizes and interprets the ideas of the famous Swiss philosopher D. de Rougemont, regarding the genesis and hidden mystical meanings of the concept of courtly love in European culture, the most fully embodied, according to the researcher, in the myth of Tristan and Isolde, comprehensively analyzed by him in the work "Love and Western Culture". The purpose of the research is to expand the field of application of the scientistʼs methodological tools and extrapolate his theory to the ideological and aesthetic phenomenon of Petrarchism and, above all, to the Petrarchan concept of love and its rhetoric. The results of the investigation are as follows. It is established that the very first version of the Petrarchan love text – the lyrical collection of F. Petrarch "Canzoniere" still retained a rather noticeable connection with the doctrine of Catharism. F. Petrarch was well acquainted with the works of the Provençal troubadours – direct relayers of the principles of Catharism in medieval Europe – and borrowed from them the fundamental conventions of the concept of courtly love, which at the time of its birth was a religion in the full sense of the term, a historically determined Christian heresy. The heresy of the Cathars consisted in interpreting love as a push beyond the visible world, towards the divine, which alone deserves love, therefore love for an earthly being was perceived as unworthy and notoriously unhappy. F. Petrarch described his feelings for Laura exactly in this way, and only after her death he began to feel free, because only then the way to the Creator opened before him. On the other hand, in the works of F. Petrarchʼs followers, these mythical layers are already lost, so the researchers conclude that Petrarchism was inherited by the post-Renaissance poets not as a worldview system, but primarily as a language strategy. It is proved that the rhetoric of Petrarchan poetry in various national literatures and individual authorsʼ poetics remained unchanged, while its ideological and thematic content can sometimes vary to the point of direct denial of the fundamental postulates of the courtly concept of love, such as, for example, the unrequited and Platonic character of the love feeling (as in the poetry of J. Donne) or a protest against the institution of marriage (as in the lyrics of E. Spenser). It is also shown that the genetic kinship of courtly rhetoric and European mysticism, both of which are directly related to the medieval Christian heresies, led to the fact that the Petrarchan language became at the same time the language of the spiritual lyrics of the European poets.

This chapter examines the poetry of Joseph Ibn Abithur. Joseph was born in the middle of the tenth century in Merida and lived in Cordoba, which was the centre of Muslim and Jewish civilisation in Spain at this time. There is a tradition, preserved by Abraham ibn Daoud, that he gave an Arabic explanation of the Talmud to the Caliph al-Hakim II. Joseph was surrounded by controversy. He was forced to leave Spain after making an unsuccessful bid for the intellectual leadership of the Jewish community, and he spent the latter part of his life journeying in the lands of the Middle East. He is known as a poet mainly for his liturgical work, much of which was adopted into the prayer-books of the Provencal, Catalonian, and North African Jews. Ultimately, his poetry is more akin to that of the piyyutim of Eastern Mediterranean Jewry than to the ‘new’ poetry beginning to flourish in Spain. The chapter then looks at three of his poems: Sanctification, A Song for the New Year, and Lament on the Devastation of the Land of Israel (1012).

This chapter examines in depth the deeply personal use of ‘talismanic’ fragments of non-translation in the work of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. Viewed as a specialized branch of modernist allusion, examples are considered in detail, in particular, Eliot’s references to the Provençal of Arnaut Daniel in Ash-Wednesday and elsewhere, and Pound’s use of Cavalcanti in The Cantos, read as a complex double-gesture, highly personal and yet strange. The chapter closes by considering the development of Eliot’s poetic practices, including the deployment of allusion and relative absence of non-translation, in Four Quartets.

Abstract Ezra Pound is one of the most important figures in the history of translation into English and a key figure for the development of translation in the twentieth-century (see Ronnie Apter’s collage in Sect. 4.2, below). Associated with his friend and fellow-deracinated American T. S. Eliot as a founding figure of Modernism, Pound was obsessed with the tradition he was trying, in a sense, to liberate himself from or at least make work for him. His translations (ranging from Chinese to Provençal) constitute a significant body of work, informing much of his other writing (for instance, his own poems and his influential essays, including his important anthology (with Marcella Spann) Confucius to Cummings, 1958). While the amount of material translated by Pound is not so vast, it has been extraordinarily influential, accompanied by his polemicizing essays and promoted by the forceful and charismatic poet himself.