L'Épopée pour rire: 'Le Voyage de Charlemagne à Jérusalem et à Constantinople' et 'Audigier' transed. by Alain Corbellari (review)

This important edition makes available, with a facing-page translation into modern French, two short texts that stretch and challenge our definition of what a chanson de geste is. As Alain Corbellari rightly notes, the idea of epics 'for laughs' is not completely surprising, as the haughty tone of the Chanson de Roland is the exception within the genre, with the geste de Guillaume texts, among other epics, full of hilarious moments. Corbellari claims that the humour of that geste ultimately reinforces the heroism of the central character, however, whereas in these two texts heroic decency is absolutely undermined. The Voyage de Charlemagne, also known as the Pèlerinage de Charlemagne, is already well known to critics, and Corbellari documents thoroughly the scholarly bibliography that has amassed around it, noting in particular those ambiguous lines that have given rise to competing interpretations, and arguing that the author aimed to perplex readers. While he respects the text's polysemous nature, Corbellari also cautions against certain interpretations: indeed, his choice of title results from his rejection of the idea that the text concerns pilgrimage and thus sacred heroic exaltation. At the other extreme lies a critical tendency to read every aspect of the Voyage as comic and parodic: thus the list of relics is often considered a joke, whereas comparison to the relics named in the Roland, which are considered serious, reveals many similarities. The scatological epic Audigier, on the other hand, has received scant critical attention, although in Giorgio Agamben the text has at least one high-profile admirer. Agamben alights on the text as his preferred example of parodic inversion, arguing that the text flips chivalric romance heroism on its head, whereas Corbellari notes the work's epic form, its links to Cocagne narratives and the carnival, and its enthusiastic medieval reception in learned contexts. Audigier is heir to a kingdom of excrement but his attempts to assert his valour are repeatedly thwarted by an old lady who humiliates him and makes him kiss her genitalia; at least his proposal of marriage to a girl who has never washed her hands, made whilst defecating, is accepted. A unique feature of this edition is the dossier of comparator texts: among these are alternate versions of the material (such as the Karlamagnus saga's account of a different fictional trip to the Orient by Charlemagne), later rewritings (such as Anatole France's version of Oliver's boast from the Voyage), and contemporary and later texts with the same spirit (such as a scatological troubadour poem and Sade's description of Thérèse in the Cent vingt journées de Sodome, which have much in common with Audigier). These excerpts usefully hint at the influence of the epic material presented here, as well as sketching alternative literary genealogies. Finally, Corbellari's translations display his great familiarity with medieval comedy. They render brilliantly the humour of the original texts; the comic names of characters in Audigier have, in particular, been very adroitly transposed. All in all, this should prove a useful and provocative addition to our epic corpus.