Anti-doxa, paradoxes et contre-textes: études occitanes (review)

This volume brings together eleven studies previously published elsewhere since 1990. The introduction states that six have been the subject of local updating, while five have been more thoroughly reworked, especially those that are the result of combining two earlier articles or conference papers. Three pieces (études 7-9) deal with de oppositis compositions, of which Occitan has startlingly few, all of them, moreover, differently classifiable. There is one study devoted to Flamenca, another on Sordel, and two on types of dialogue. Another, somewhat isolated piece presents Wallada, female poet of al-Andalus, and suggests that, by her singularity and raunchiness, she resembles a trobairitz. The three remaining studies revolve around Guilhem IX's notorious 'Red Cat' poem, debunking the rather breezy psychoanalytical readings of the song first advanced in the 1980s and emphasizing the Arabic influence on the first troubadour. The usefulness of reissuing these somewhat outdated psychoanalytical studies is debatable, however: Lacanian approaches to medieval literature have moved on considerably over the past twenty years or so, although the footnotes do not recognize this. It is similarly frustrating to see A. R. Nykl and Évaniste Lévi-Provençal still adduced as the most recent authorities on the 'arabisant' question, and few would now look to the work of István Frank or Rita Lejeune for explanations of scribal behaviour or the divergences of manuscripts C and NN²V. Patrice Uhl's studies, however, are built on engagement with such scholarship, and revising the bibliographical references will not be sufficient to produce analyses that have the same pertinence today. The main threads connecting all the studies are supplied by Pierre Bec's idea of the Occitan contre-texte and Paul Zumthor's claim of 1972, quoted several times, that the medieval poetic tradition 'est assez puissante pour intégrer sa propre contestation' (p. 133); but Uhl does not draw on the work of more recent critics who have transformed our view of the troubadour lyric by developing the notions of dialogue, contradiction, and intertextuality within the tradition. An associated problem is the view, fundamental to the author's approach, of the canso as having a monolithic doxa, a kind of serious, rule-bound ideal of cortezia and fin'amor, whereas troubadour scholarship over the last decades has in many respects highlighted and explored the much more fluid, paradoxical, playful, and slippery nature of the poetic practice of trobar and the ideology it vehicles. While Uhl has a number of interesting insights and points to make, these remain isolated and the reader is frequently driven to exclaim 'but what about the work of X or Y?'. The fundamental weakness of this collection is that it is simply not in touch with Occitan literary scholarship and most especially the huge amount of material published by Italian specialists over recent years.