Poetry, Knowledge, and Community in Late Medieval France (review)

This tremendously rich and exciting volume, stemming from the AHRC 'Poetic Knowledge in Late Medieval France' project, compellingly fulfils its aim to establish 'the significant role played by poetry […] in the culture of knowledge of late medieval France' (Sinclair, p. xi), that is, from the late thirteenth to the late fifteenth century. Following Sinclair's expository preface and an introductory essay by Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet which subtly probes the relationship between erotic and philosophical or theological desire from Jean de Meun to Christine de Pizan, the collection is organised into three sections: 'Learned Poetry/Poetry and Learning', 'Verse or Prose?', and 'Poetic Communities'. Thirteen essays, all lucidly written (ten in English, three in French), are characterised by acute textual analysis, sensitive consideration of literary form, and perspicacious examination of the material context of manuscript production and transmission. Chapters shed important new light on well-known works, such as Christine de Pizan's allegories (Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Thelma Fenster) or the Jeu de Robin et de Marion (Jennifer Saltzstein); promote the epistemic and cultural interest of more neglected texts, notably the Echecs amoureux (Amandine Mussou), Jean Gerson's poetry (Mishtooni Bose, Lori Walters), and Jean Meschinot's Ballades des princes (Denis Hüe); and tackle familiar figures from a less usual perspective, exploring Jean de Meun's work as translator (David Hult) or the role of love lyrics to express moral wisdom in the Fauvel manuscript (Nancy Freeman Regalado). The volume closes with a synthetic digest of the foregoing studies to educe five factors that make 'poetry propitious to conveying knowledge and to establishing communities' (Rebecca Dixon, p. 215): its quotability, recontextualisability, invitation to interpretation, public dimension, and therapeutic quality. Dixon's conclusion evokes the two greatest qualities of the collection: the stimulating range of perspectives investigated, and the intellectual coherence of the chapters. Knowledge is examined diversely as technê, philosophical and theological reflection, political instruction, moral guidance, lyric meditation privileging experience over analysis, narrative commentary (the role of razos, interrogated by Michel Zink), identity, and common knowledge (fama) Integral to the definition and shaping of knowledge is literary form, especially the varied meaning of poetrie in a late-medieval context: designating verse (which may be distinguished from carmen, as Bose and Walters argue), but also 'a figurative mode of discourse' proper to verse and prose 'that accommodates not just […] 'fiction' but also myth, history, and natural philosophy' (Akbari, p. 143). Several essays pioneer several new perspectives on relations between verse and prose: how verse may serve as gloss rather than the subject of glossing (Deborah McGrady), or how prosification does not exclude the strategic use of lyric insertions to mould authorial or audience identity (Stephanie A. V. G. Kamath, David J. Wrisley). Community emerges as an essential feature of both production and reception: a poet's use of refrain citation to project a regional identity (Saltzstein), intellectual interaction between poets themselves (Chastellain and Meschinot (Hüe), Gerson and de Pizan (Walters)), and patterns of manuscript compilation (Regalado), as well as the social, diplomatic, political or pastoral action performed by a work on its target audience(s). This exemplary volume greatly expands and enriches scholarly horizons on the role of poetry in late medieval France.