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Portraits of Authors at the end of the Middle Ages: Tombs in Majesty and Carnivalesque Epitaphs

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The Medieval Author in Medieval French Literature

Part of the book series: Studies in Arthurian and Courtly Cultures ((SACC))

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Abstract

A chosen poet is introduced at the beginning of the manuscripts in which the complete works of Guillaume de Machaut are collected, a chosen poet referred to by his name, “Guillaume.” The forces naming the poet are two allegorical powers, Nature and Love, who distinguish him as a poet “fourmé a part” [created apart].1 A chosen poetess, as a woman, the lowest among the low, receives the grace of an apparition. Three ladies, Reason, Righteousness, and Justice, on the model of the annunciation to the Virgin, make known to her that she will write the Livre de la Cité des Dames.2 These ladies also urge her to continue her work on Le Livre des Trois Vertus.3 The poetess is referred to by the family ties linking her to these powers, not by her proper name (notice the subtle difference with Guillaume de Machaut), but by a relationship: “Fille chere” [Dear Daughter].4 This is how the first lady addresses Christine.

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Notes

  1. Guillaume de Machaut, Œuvres, ed. Ernest Hoepffner, SATF, 3 vols (Paris: Firmin Didot, Champion, 1908, 1911, 1921). The Prologue is in volume 1. Unless otherwise indicated by a note, the translations from the original texts are those of the translator.

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  2. Christine de Pizan, Le Livre de la Cité des Dames. Original text in La città delle Dame, 2nd edn., ed. Earl Jeffrey Richards and Patrizia Caraffi (Milan: Luni Editrice, 1998). English translation: The Book of the City of Ladies, trans. Earl Jeffrey Richards (New York: Persea Books, 1998).

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  3. Christine de Pizan, Le Livre des Trois Vertus, ed. Charity Cannon Willard and Eric Hicks (Paris: Champion, 1989).

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  4. See: Ernst Robert Curtius,“Topique de l’exorde,” La littérature européenne et le Moyen Age latin, trans. Jean Bréjoux (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1956), pp. 106–110. In English: “Topics of the exordium,” European Literature and the Latin Middle-Ages, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 85–89.

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  5. Chrétien de Troyes, Le Chevalier de la Charrette, ed. Charles Méla (Paris: Librairie Générale Française, 1992). English translation: Chrétien de Troyes, “The Knight of the Cart,” in The Complete Romances of Chrétien de Troyes, trans. David Staines (Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 1990), p. 170.

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  6. Chrétien de Troyes, Le Conte du Graal, ed. Charles Méla (Paris: Librairie Générale Française, 1990). English translation: Chrétien de Troyes, The Story of the Grail (Li contes del Graal or Perceval), ed. Rupert T. Pickens, trans. William W. Kibler (New York: Garland, 1990), p. 5.

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  7. Jean Froissart, L’Orloge amoureux, ed. Peter F. Dembowski (Geneva: Droz, 1986).

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  8. Dante, Purgatorio, trans. Robert and Jean Hollander (New York: Doubleday, 2003). This is the Dante Project translation (Copyright 1997–1998, The Trustees of Princeton University and Professor Robert Hollander). Dorothy Sayers translates noto as “sing” in The Divine Comedy, trans. Dorothy Sayers (New York: Basic Books, 1962), p. 255. (Translator’s note).

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  9. Dante, Œuvres complètes, trans. and ed. André Pézard (Paris: Gallimard/Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1965), p. 1289.

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  10. Dante, La Divine Comédie. Le Purgatoire, trans. Jacqueline Risset (Paris: Flammarion, 1988).

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  11. Christine de Pizan, Œuvres poétiques, ed. Maurice Roy, SATF, 3 vols. (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1886–1896), vol. 1.

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  12. Christine de Pizan, Le Livre de la Mutacion de Fortune, ed. Suzanne Solente, SATF, 4 vols. (Paris: Picard, 1959–1966). See our study: “D’une mise en scène du texte littéraire à la fin du Moyen Age: sa naissance dans l’œuvre d’art,” in La littérature et les arts figurés de l’Antiquité à nos jours, Actes du XIVe Congrès de l’Association Guillaume Budé (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2001), pp. 529–538.

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  13. Guillaume de Machaut, Le Livre dou Voir Dit, ed. Paul Imbs and Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet (Paris: Librairie Générale Française, 1999). English translation: Le Livre dou Voir Dit (The book of the True Poem), ed. Daniel Leech-Wilson, trans. R. Barton Palmer (New York: Garland, 1998), p. 7.

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  14. Martin Le Franc, Le Champion des Dames, ed. Robert Deschaux, 5 vols. (Paris, Champion, 1999), vol. 1, p. 1.

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  15. Christine de Pizan, Le livre de l’advision Christine, ed. Christine Reno and Liliane Dulac (Paris: Champion, 2001), p. 110. English Translation: The Writings of Christine de Pizan, ed. Charity Cannon Willard (New York: Persea Books, 1994), p. 17.

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  16. Tibaut, Le Roman de la Poire, ed. Christiane Marchello-Nizia (Paris: SATF, 1984).

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  17. Christine de Pizan, prologue to L’Epistre Othea, ed. Gabriella Parussa (Geneva: Droz, 1999). English translation: Christine de Pizan’s Letter of Othea to Hector, trans. Jane Chance (Suffolk and Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell and Brewer, 1990 [Reissued, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1997]), p. 34.

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  18. Coudrette, Le roman de Mélusine, ed. Eleanor Roach (Paris: Klincksieck, 1982). English translation: Couldrette, A bilingual Edition of Couldrette’s Mélusine or Le Roman de Parthenay, ed. Matthew W Morris (Lewiston NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003), p. 61.

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  19. Guillaume de Machaut, Le livre de la fontaine amoureuse, ed. Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet (Paris: Stock, 1993).

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  20. Christine de Pizan, Cent Ballades d’Amant et de Dame, ed. Jacqueline Cerquiglini-[Toulet] (Paris: Union Générale d’Editions, 1982). English translation: The Selected Writings of Christine de Pizan, trans. R. Blumenfeld-Kosinski and K. Brownlee, p. 217.

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  21. Voir Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet, “L’amour des livres au XIVe siècle,” Mélanges de philologie et de littérature médiévales offerts à Michel Burger, ed. Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet and Olivier Collet (Geneva: Droz, 1994), pp. 333–340.

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  22. Eustache Deschamps, Œuvres complètes, ed. marquis de Queux de Saint-Hilaire, SATF, 11 vols. (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1878), vol. 1, ballades 123 and 124.

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  23. Jean Robertet, Œuvres, ed. Margaret Zsuppán (Geneva: Droz, 1970), pp. 159–178.

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  24. See Luc Hommel, Pages choisies de Chastellain (Paris: Editions Universitaires, 1949), p. 21.

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  25. René d’Anjou, Le Livre du Cuer d’Amours espris, ed. Susan Wharton (Paris: Union générale d’Editions, 1980), p. 141. New edition: ed. Florence Bouchet (Paris: Librairie Générale Française, 2003), p. 135. On the cemetery in Le Livre du Cuer,

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  26. see Daniel Poirion, “Les tombeaux allégoriques et la poétique de l’inscription dans le Livre du Cuer d’Amours espris de René d’Anjou (1457),” in Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Comptes Rendus des séances de l’année 1990, avril-juin (Paris: De Boccard, 1990), pp. 321–334.

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  27. Gilles Li Muisis, Poésies, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, 2 vols (Louvain: Lefever, 1882), vol. 1, pp. 86–94.

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  28. Recueil d’Arts de Seconde rhétorique, ed. Ernest Langlois (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1902), p. 11.

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  29. “Papelardie” in the Roman de la Rose has been translated by Charles Dahlberg as “Pope-Holiness” (The Romance of the Rose [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971], p. 36) and as “Pope-Holy” by Harry Robins (The Romance of the Rose [New York: Dutton, 1962]), p. 10.

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  30. Christine de Pizan, Jean Gerson, Jean de Montreuil, Confier et Pierre Col, Le Débat sur le Roman de la Rose, ed. Eric Hicks (Paris: Champion, 1977), p. 100.

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  31. See Carla Bozzolo, Manuscrits des traductions françaises d’œuvres de Boccace. XVe siècle (Padua: Editrice Antenore, 1973), p. 6.

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  32. François Villon, Poésies diverses in Poésies complètes, ed. Claude Thiry (Paris: Librairie Générale Française, 1991), p. 309. English translation: The poems of François Villon, trans. Galway Kinnell (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977), p. 207.

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  33. See Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet, L’écriture testamentaire à la fin du Moyen Age. Identité, dispersion, trace (Oxford: Legenda, 1999).

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  34. Le recueil des repues franches de Maistre François Villon et de ses compagnons, ed. Jelle Koopmans and Paul Verhuyck (Geneva: Droz, 1995).

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Authors
  1. Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, and in the Program of History and Literature, Harvard University, USA

    Virginie Greene (professor of French) (professor of French)

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© 2006 Virginie Greene

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Cerquiglini-Toulet, J. (2006). Portraits of Authors at the end of the Middle Ages: Tombs in Majesty and Carnivalesque Epitaphs. In: Greene, V. (eds) The Medieval Author in Medieval French Literature. Studies in Arthurian and Courtly Cultures. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403983459_9

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