A New History of Medieval French Literature

8. Models of Writing

107 chapter eight Models of Writing Some large fields of knowledge serve to define didactic, satiric, or parodic texts. This type of writing generally combines a vocabulary that is supplied by the chosen intellectual model, and a formal mold. The Grammatical Model: Donats and Doctrinals Ernst Robert Curtius discussed the use of grammatical metaphors since the end of Antiquity, and Paul Lehmann’s Parodie im Mittelalter (Parody in the Middle Ages) offers examples of these scholarly pleasantries in Latin. They are also to be found in medieval French literature, and are not limited there to the clerical domain. Charles of Orleans addressed a mischievous rondeau to his secretary Estienne le Goût, built around this metaphor: “Master Etienne le Goût, nominative, newly on the optative mode wanted to be copulative. But his genitive case failed him” (Maistre Estienne le Gout, nominatif,/Nouvellement par maniere optative/Si a voulu faire copulative;/Mais failli a en son cas genitif; rondeau 83). The secretary responded to him in the same register. The phenomenon can be observed on a large scale as well. The term “donat” signifies grammatical compendiums inspired by the tradition of the Ars minor of the Latin grammarian Aelius Donatus (second half of the fourth century CE). These compendiums, in the true sense, are numerous. Modeled on Uc Faidit’s Donatz Proensals, which proposes an overview of metrics and a grammar of the langue d’oc, treatises were written that preserved the form of the grammatical textbook but transposed the subject matter into different fields. Among these, we may note Jean Gerson’s Donat de dévotion, or Donatus spiritualis, evidently translated and printed by Colard Mansion after 1479, and the Donet baillié au roy Loÿs Douzieme by Jean Molinet, which is also to be found under the title Donnet baillé au feu roy Charles huytiesme de ce nom. 108 the field of literature A similar transposition is seen with Alexandre de Villedieu’s Doctrinale, a grammar textbook that was popular in the schools of the Middle Ages, of which there are more than four hundred extant manuscript copies. In 1466, Pierre Michault, aware that Alain de Lille is playing with grammatical vocabulary in his De planctu Naturae (The Complaint of Nature)—he cites it under the title Des plaintes de Nature (Complaints of Nature)—produced a Doctrinal du temps present (Doctrinal of the Present Day) entirely founded on a parodic confusion of grammar and vice. Accompanied by Virtue, the narrator visits a school of Vices, whose general rector is Fausseté (Falseness). Twelve masters teach there. Vantance (Boasting), for example, explains the cases of declension: the nominative , his own name; the genitive, that of his ancestors, those who have engendered him. Concupiscence exposes the genres, Hic, Hec, Hoc, masculine , feminine, neutral. Corruption leads the chapter on short and long vowels. But many texts that are called Doctrinal in the Middle Ages do not play with grammatical vocabulary but simply dispense a teaching, a doctrine . This is so for the Doctrinal des Princesses et nobles dames, faict et deduict en XXIII rondeaulx (Doctrine for Princesses and Noble Ladies, Written and Deduced in XXIII Rondeaux) by Jean Marot, and for very many short texts from the end of the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries, addressing the different states, for example: Doctrinal des filles à marier (Doctrine for Girls to Be Married) and Doctrinal des bons serviteurs (Doctrine for Good Servants). Some treatises can simultaneously function as such on a matter that they discuss in a literal sense and apply metaphorically to another domain . This happens in the Leys d’Amors at the beginning of the fourteenth century. In the prose version in five books—the first redaction—we find grammar, poetics, parts of discourse, rhetoric, and rhymes. However, through this rich homologous reflection on harmony, the eight parts of discourse are compared with the different social categories. In discussing the verb, it asserts, “the verb, in the manner of an emperor or a great king, wants to govern and does not want to be governed” (le verbs a maniera d’emperador o de gran rey, vol regir e no vol esser regitz). Any treatise, however technical, leads to a vision of the society and of the world. Models of Writing 109 The Religious Model Religion provided efficient formats or molds, in the shape of its universally familiar manuals and breviaries, into which other subject matter could be poured, whether parodic...