The Medieval Author in Medieval French Literature [Hardcover]

Thirty-five years ago Roland Barthes proclaimed the death of the Author. For medievalists no death has been more timely. The essays in this volume create a prism through which to understand medieval authorship as a process and the medieval author as an agency in the making.Introduction: Saint Marcel, Asthmatic and Martyr; V.Greene Authorial Relays: Continuing Chrestien's Conte du Graal; M.Bruckner D'un masque l'autre: les vicissitudes de l'auteur du roman au temps de Perceforest; A.Berthelot Borrowing, Citation, and Authorship in Gautier de Coinci's Miracles de Nostre Dame; M.Switten The Roman de la Rose as a Moebius Strip (On Interpretation); A.Leupin The Names of the Rose; S.G.Nichols Experiencing Self and Narrating Self in Medieval French Chronicles; S.Marnette Neutrality Affects: Froissart and the Practice of Historiographic Authorship; Z.Stahuljak Christine de Pizan's Status as Author in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Manuscript Miscellanies: The Evidence of Scribal Rubrics; K.Fresco Portraits d'auteurs a la fin du Moyen Age: Tombeaux en majeste et epitaphes carnavalesques; J.Cerquiglini-Toulet De face et de profil: le geste identitaire de l'auteur a la fin du Moyen Age; D.Bohler Medieval Bestsellers in the Age of Printing: Melusine and Olivier de Castille; A.Pairet What Happened to Medievalists after the Death of the Author?; V.Greene

There is an intriguing misfit between Barthes's claim that the authoris deadand medieval textsfor whom theauthor may never haveexisted. A dozen leading French medievalists reflect here on our desire nevertheless to recognize the authors of the works we read - or on their desire to be recognized by us.Some essays address the play of authorial singularity and multiplicity; others the interplay between effacement and self-staging; yet others thegenesis of the medieval text. Greene's nuanced opening and closing remarksmaintain focus and pacein this excellent and diversevolume. - Sarah Kay, Princeton University

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