La folie dans la littérature médiévale: étude des représentations de la folie dans la littérature des XIIe, XIIIe et XIVe siècles par Huguette Legros (review)

Reviews 201 develops this idea in homage to Peggy Kamuf, explaining Kamuf’s use of the term and similar ones (“semi-approaches,”“semi-theory”) to critique the limiting perception of Cixous as “French feminist theorist” in the 1990s. Hanrahan presents the narrative movement and force of Cixous’s fictions as integral to the author’s unsettling of the line between fiction and theoretical discourse. She devotes a chapter each to five books of fiction by Cixous, highlighting the writer’s encounter with a particular theoretical area in each case. She takes us chronologically from Cixous’s beginnings in 1969 to 2000, with additional references to her more recent work through 2013. Hanrahan explores Dedans in relation to questions of knowledge and authority in psychoanalysis; Les commencements in the context of deconstruction; Souffles in connection with sexual difference; Déluge in relation to genre, through the topic of tragedy; and Les rêveries de la femme sauvage in connection with concepts of narrative time. Her chapters are a satisfying mixture of close readings and discussion, including revealing references to previous drafts of the author’s books from the“Fonds Hélène Cixous”at the Bibliothèque nationale. In Hanrahan’s detailed textual analyses, the quotes from Cixous’s works appear in both the original French and English translation. She moves convincingly from the insights of previous scholarship to her own, giving generous credit to the work of her predecessors. Of particular interest are Hanrahan’s discussion of Dedans, in which she describes how Cixous displaces the inherently closure-seeking structures of psychoanalysis, her fresh look at motherhood in Souffles, and, in the book as a whole, through the multiple linguistic associations that she presents, her ability to inspire the reader’s ideas on Cixous’s texts. In terms of the book’s organization, it is unfortunate that references to the author’s more recent writings appear more often in endnotes than in the body of the text. A final chapter pointing us in the direction of this later work would have been more satisfying. But Hanrahan has accomplished what she set out to do. In her nuanced study, she shows how Cixous’s “exuberant” (12) fiction, far from creating or exemplifying a certain theory, engages with—and exceeds the boundaries of—a number of areas of thought. Hanrahan helps us expand our notion of theory to include this idea of thinking in and through fiction. Her book is useful and inspiring for those interested in the other thinkers whom Hanrahan describes and with whom she engages, as well as Cixous. Western Michigan University Cynthia Running-Johnson Legros, Huguette. La folie dans la littérature médiévale: étude des représentations de la folie dans la littérature des XIIe , XIIIe et XIVe siècles. Rennes: PU de Rennes, 2013. ISBN 978-2-7535-2907-6. Pp. 556. 24 a. Cette étude des manifestations de la folie dans la littérature médiévale relève d’un courageux parti-pris de la lettre. L’auteur reconnaît, en fin de parcours, avoir“délibérement choisi de fragmenter l’étude des représentations de la folie, œuvre par œuvre, pour mieux mettre en évidence la singularité des différents textes” (527). Legros propose en effet de développer des enquêtes lancées par Philippe Ménard et JeanMarie Fritz. L’auteure situe clairement son propos par rapport au travail fondateur de ce dernier, Le discours du fou au Moyen Âge: étude comparative des discours littéraire, médical, juridique et théologique de la folie (PUF, 1992): il s’agira moins d’étudier comment “le fou et la folie sont analysés et pensés” (7) que d’analyser les diverses articulations narratives de la folie pour cerner les rôles et les fonctions du fou dans les textes littéraires, du douzième au quatorzième siècle. Comme le met en évidence cette minutieuse étude de textes écrits en langue d’oïl, mais aussi en latin et en langue d’oc, “la peinture de la folie traverse toutes les formes de la littérature médiévale: romans, récits brefs, dits, jeux profanes et...