Medieval Autographies: The "I" of the Text

Chapter 2: Autography: Prologues and Dits

33 C h a p t e r 2 A U T O G R A P H Y : P R O L O G U E S A N D D i t s the occurrences of a narratorial first person in Wynnere and Wastoure have behind them no fictional self of which an autobiography could be imagined. that brings us back to the terminological question, the question of autography, which i hope we may now be better prepared to take up after this examination of a particular case. in recent years, when asked to give a paper or a lecture on my current work, i have sometimes put the word “autography” in the title, only to find that “autobiography” has been substituted for it in announcements—sometimes repeatedly, in spite of my attempts to have it corrected.“autobiography” is certainly the more familiar word, most people assume they know what it means, and probably think of it as referring to a natural and permanent genre. over the last century and more, autobiography has proved to be extremely popular among readers, and anyone wishing or required to compose an autobiography would probably know enough models to have a clear sense of how to set about it.Yet the word “autobiography” has been traced no further back than the late eighteenth century,1 and the concept has proved surprisingly hard to define and to theorize. as paul de Man puts it, the theory of autobiography is plagued by a recurrent series of questions and approaches that are not simply false, in the sense 34 M e d i e v a l a u t o g r a p h i e s that they are far-fetched or aberrant, but that are confining, in that they take for granted assumptions about autobiographical discourse that are in fact highly problematic. . . . empirically as well as theoretically, autobiography lends itself poorly to generic definition; each specific instance seems to be an exception to the norm; the works themselves always seem to shade off into neighboring or even incompatible genres and, perhaps most revealing of all, generic discussions, which can have such powerful heuristic value in the case of tragedy or of the novel, remain distressingly sterile when autobiography is at stake.2 in modern literary discussion “autography” has sometimes been used to contrast with autobiography. one interesting instance is a 1988 article by h. porter abbott, with the title “autobiography, autography, Fiction: groundwork for a taxonomy of textual Categories .” For abbott, autobiography is one “narrative subset” of the broader category of “self-writing,” which he calls autography.3 he sees autobiography as performative, a sort of action, with the author, as he puts it, “present in the text, pushing and shoving the facts, coloring events, in short, doing something for himself.”4 the underlying assumption is that in autobiography a truth about the author exists outside the text, ready to be revealed by it, and that it is perhaps especially likely to be revealed in cases where the author is attempting to conceal it. indeed, in one early use of the word “autobiography,” Friedrich schlegel observes that one“great group among the autobiographers [Autobiographen] is formed by the autopseusts [self-deceivers].”5 that is a valuable insight,and a few cases of medieval“self-writing” do seem to reveal extratextual truths that the writer did not intend and seems to have been unaware of, though i know of none in english . (The Book of Margery Kempe would be an english instance if it were indeed “self-writing.”) one medieval example is abelard’s Historia calamitatum, which inadvertently exposes in abelard motives very different from the “purity of my intentions and love of our Faith” by which he claimed, and perhaps believed himself, autography: prologues and Dits 35 to be driven.6 the Historia reveals rather obviously how his ambitious egotism provoked the enmities by which he professes himself so baffled. it seems ironic that the promoter of an ethic of intention should apparently have had so little understanding of his own intentions, but there is no indication that the irony was intended. Many modern readings of the Historia see it as recording a growth in self-knowledge; thus eileen C. sweeney has recently written that abelard “presents himself as developing toward greater depth and interiority, coming to realize the gap between his reputation and the reality, which caused his...