Knowing Poetry: Verse in Medieval France from the 'Rose' to the 'Rhétoriqueurs' (review)

This book, jointly authored by two distinguished French medievalists, re-examines the nature and role of poetry during the period c. 1270-c. 1530. The supposed 'opposition' between verse and prose, the origins of which are usually traced to the late twelfth or early thirteenth century in histories of French literature, is by no means as clear-cut as received opinion would have us believe. The rise of prose, it is argued here, led to a reinvigoration and transformation of verse, rather than to its decline. One of the great merits of this book is its revisionist and open approach to the problem, which allows for the kind of nuanced observations rare in other treatments of the topic. Adrian Armstrong and Sarah Kay are aware that the delimitation of the period and the choice of texts they examine are, while justifiable, flexible, highly selective, and subject to question. The period is essentially that from the tail end of the 'classical' age of Old French literature to the middle of the reign of François Ier. Some better-known texts chosen as exemplary and paradigmatic include Jean de Meun's Roman de la rose, the Ovide moralisé, the French versions of Boethius's De consolatione, the poetry of Christine de Pisan, Machaut, Froissart, Deschamps, and Bouchet, together with later dramatic works. There are also welcome pages on Matfre Ermengaud's Occitan encyclopedic Breviari d'amor. Indeed, one of the most refreshing aspects of this book is its treatment of a good number of additional 'non-canonical' texts, of which most scholars have heard but to which not all will have given much more than a passing thought. After an ample Introduction laying out the book's premises and structure, the two principal parts of the work each contain three chapters. The chapters of 'Situating Knowledge' examine the links between verse (not always to be equated with poetry) and the institutions that transmit knowledge. Foremost among these are the modalities of performance, patronage, and mediation by means of learned poetry. In 'Transmitting and Shaping Knowledge', Armstrong and Kay examine the different kinds of knowledge transmitted by the texts in their corpus. In turn, they consider encyclopedic verse texts and the encyclopedic tendency of narrative verse, verse that deals with poetics and poetic forms, and the relationship between late medieval verse and its publics or textual communities. The book is written in a clear and uncluttered style, its arguments supported by a deft balance of the theoretical and the textual (with the occasional brief excursion into the codicological). It is difficult in a summary review to do justice to the stimulating richness of this book, which deserves to be widely read. While not all scholars will accept all of its premises and conclusions, it is a welcome and indispensable contribution to the recent rehabilitation of late medieval French literature.