The Medieval Author in Medieval French Literature

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Introduction

   • Virginie Greene

   Pages 1-11

3. Authorial Relays: Continuing Chrétien’s Conte du Graal

   • Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner

   Pages 13-28

4. Borrowing, Citation, and Authorship in Gautier de Coinci’s Miracles de Nostre Dame

   • Margaret Switten

   Pages 29-59

5. The Roman de la Rose as a MöBius Strip (On Interpretation)

   • Alexandre Leupin

   Pages 61-75

6. The Medieval “Author”: An Idea Whose Time Hadn’t Come?

   • Stephen G. Nichols

   Pages 77-101

7. From One Mask to Another: The Trials and Tribulations of an Author of Romance at the Time of Perceforest

   • Anne Berthelot

   Pages 103-115

8. The Experiencing Self and the Narrating Self in Medieval French Chronicles

   • Sophie Marnette

   Pages 117-136

9. Neutrality Affects: Froissart and the Practice of Historiographic Authorship

   • Zrinka Stahuljak

   Pages 137-156

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

    • Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet

    Pages 157-171

11. Frontally and in Profile: The Identifying Gesture of the Late Medieval Author

    • Danielle Bohler

    Pages 173-187

12. Medieval Bestsellers in the Age of Print: Melusine and Olivier de Castille

    • Ana Pairet

    Pages 189-204

13. What Happened to Medievalists After the Death of the Author?

    • Virginie Greene

    Pages 205-227

14. Back Matter

    Pages 229-255

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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.

• Autorschaft
• Interpretation
• novel

"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

"This provocative collection of essays explores authorial agency in a variety of medieval French texts from the twelfth through sixteenth centuries. Contributors argue for the ways in which authorial identity is debated, contested, and constructed through the reuse and continuation of earlier texts, through contradiction and even violence, and through claims to authority, neutrality, and truth. This extended interrogation of medieval authorship offers important new understandings of medieval literary practices and of the textual negotiations that define the medieval author." - Peggy McCracken, University of Michigan

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

  Virginie Greene

VIRGINIE GREENE is Associate Professor of Medieval French Literature at Harvard, USA.

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