Bibliographical Guide to the Study of the Troubadours and Old Occitan Literature by Robert A. Taylor (review)

In the past five years, there has been a surge in bibliographical studies in the fields of Old Occitan literature and linguistics. In addition to the annual bibliographies published in the pages of journals such as Tenso and The Year’s Work in Modern Language Studies, and those published yearly by Miriam Cabré and Sadurní Martí on the website of Narpan (<www.narpan.net>), there have been three major bibliographies published. Wendy Pfeffer’s and Robert A. Taylor’s Bibliographie de la littérature occitane: trente années d’études (1977–2007) (reviewed by François Pic in Tenso 28) was published in 2011. Just afterwards, in 2012, the Bibliographie linguistique de l’occitan médiéval et moderne (1987–2007) of Kathryn Klingebiel (reviewed by Thomas Field in Tenso 30) appeared. And now, in 2015, we have a third substantial bibliography published by Robert A. Taylor: the Bibliographical Guide to the Study of the Troubadours and Old Occitan Literature. Whereas the bibliographies of Klingebiel (544 pp.) and Pfeffer and Taylor (652 pp.) are “aussi inclusive[s] que possible” (Pfeffer and Taylor 7, n. 5), Taylor’s 2015 bibliography is “selective” and “critical” (ix). While the two previous bibliographies accomplish the Herculean task of providing a “somme” (I borrow the term from François Pic) of the existing scholarship dating from the periods surveyed, the Bibliographical Guide provides a representative sample of the vast body of critical work available on Old Occitan literature. The majority of these entries include a concise and accurate description of the article’s interest, methodology, and argument, along with the occasional additional comment containing insights, objections, background information, cross-references, or counterarguments. Add a helpful and concise preface and a well-compiled index and this makes the Bibliographical Guide a must-have for the student or researcher of Occitan literature.

The Bibliographical Guide serves, by and large, as a continuation of Taylor’s previous book-length bibliography, La Littérature occitane du moyen âge, published in 1977. The period surveyed, 1975–2011 (with some entries from 2012), picks up right where La Littérature occitane du moyen âge left off; however, since Taylor wishes to provide a guide to “essential publications” (xx), there is some overlap. A number of works, such as the Bibliographie der Troubadours of Pillet and Carsten, for example, can be found in both volumes; the references that propose corrections and updates to this essential bibliography published first in 1933 have been expanded and updated with the most recent scholarship. Apart from the change in language (Taylor writes in English here, rather than French), the largest difference between the two books is their scope: La Littérature occitane du moyen âge contains 885 entries over 155 pages, while Bibliographical Guide has 3099 that extend over 539 pages (not including the preface or index). The resulting impression, pointed out by Taylor in his preface, is of Occitan studies as a “vigorous and continuing” field (ix) steadily alimented by the work of scholars from around the world.

A glance at the Bibliographical Guide’s table of contents helps the reader orient him- or herself quickly and efficiently. For more specific searches, the index includes names, topics, and concepts that direct the user to the desired reference, which, in turn, frequently contains helpful cross-references. The volume is organized into six sections: “I. Reference Works” (1–26), “II. Texts” (26–44), “III. Literary Criticism (Lyric)” (44–164), “IV. Literary Criticism (Non-Lyric)” (164–295), “V. Related Fields (Diffusion, Influences)” (296–315), and “VI. The Troubadours, Trobairitz” (315–539). Each section is divided into chapters (represented by arabic numerals) that are then divided into subject headings (differentiated by decimal numbers). So, to give an example of the book’s structure, the section “Texts” contains the chapters “6. Manuscript Sources,” “7. Anthologies,” and “8. Attribution Studies,” and the subject headings listed under “Manuscript...