Abstract
The first poet heroines to appear within the French tradition are minstrel heroines, women who disguise themselves as professional entertainers to facilitate escape and travel, and who perform poetic works in public rather than composing them in private. Minstrel heroines appear throughout the long thirteenth century in texts such as Aucassin et Nicolette (c. 1175–1250), Beuve de Hantonne (three French verse versions, c. 1200–1230), and Galeran de Bretagne (c. 1216–20), then experience a brief revival some two hundred years later through two memorable figures in the prose romances Perceforest and Ysaÿe le Triste.1 The enduring appeal of having a heroine impersonate a minstrel is perhaps due to the number of plot problems that such a masquerade solves, freeing the female character to travel and rendering her self-supporting through the use of poetic and musical skills that—as I will discuss shortly—many noblewomen would have possessed, while tapping into the well of possibilities surrounding mistaken identity and disguise.2
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Notes
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© 2012 Brooke Heidenreich Findley
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Findley, B.H. (2012). Singing From a Woman’s Body: Minstrel Heroines as Performers and Texts. In: Poet Heroines in Medieval French Narrative. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137113061_2
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