Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Trinity College Dublin

CENTRE FOR MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES, TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
Outreach Programme: Old French
Dr Juliet O'Brien, CMRS, TCD / School of Languages and Literatures, UCD
"Reading Medieval French Literature through Tristan et Iseut"

This seminar series (lectures followed by discussion) will focus on Tristan et Iseut, around and through which we will read some of the most stirring and beautiful 12th-14th c. French poetry, short verse narrative, and romance; and see how these forms are inter-connected. Some Occitan texts and extracts are also included. The lecture-portion of the course will situate readings in their immediate and larger-scale context, covering background history, cultural setting, literary allusions, and intersections with current questions in literary criticism.
While a sound reading knowledge of modern French will be useful, no prior knowledge of Old French is required. Indeed, the course will be accompanied by (optional) progressive weekly grammar exercises - on the readings - for those participants who wish to learn or refresh their Old French. All materials will be provided.

Readings will include:

• Old French and Occitan lyric poetry and short verse narrative
• Béroul, Thomas, et al, Tristan et Iseut
• Chrétien de Troyes, Romans
• Abelard and Heloise, Letters
• Aucassin et Nicolette
• Floire et Blanchefleur
• Heldris de Cornüalle, Le Roman de Silence
• Le Roman de Flamenca
• Guillaume de Machaut, Le Livre du Voir dit
• Jean Froissart, Dits
• Alain Chartier, La Belle Dame sans merci

Syllabus

HILARY TERM

WEEK 1: Introduction: Tristan et Iseut.
WEEKS 2-4: I. TRISTAN. Wanderers and wily tricksters; adventurers and the quest for identity; conjunctions between lyric poetry and romance.

2. Tristan in lyric poetry; mythopoesis:

Guilhem de Peitieus and Jaufré Rudel;

Marcabru and Rutebeuf.

3. Adventurers in the romans antiques; and the matière de Bretagne:

Chrétien de Troyes, Le Chevalier de la charrette [Lancelot], Yvain, Perceval.

4. Parodic intertextuality: portraits of the perfect hero/lover:

Le Roman de Renart;
Renaut de Beaujeu, Le Bel inconnu;

Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Le Roman de la Rose.

WEEKS 5-7: II. ISEUT. Isoldian wily women, in short narrative.

5. Hagiography:

Fides;
Sainte Enimie;
Rutebeuf, Sainte Marie l’Egyptienne.

6. Occitan trobairitz lyric and its romance relations:

Tibors, Castelloza, Comtessa de Dia;

Soliloquies: Roman d’Enéas; Benoît de Saint-Maure, Roman de Troie; Chrétien de Troyes, Le Chevalier de la Charrette, Erec et Enide, and Cligés;

Roman de Flamenca.

7. Cunning, paradoxical, and twisted women in romance:

Le Roman des Sept sages de Rome;
Heldris de Cornüalle, Le Roman de Silence;
Alain Chartier, La Belle Dame sans merci.

WEEKS 8-9: III. TRISTAN AND ISEUT. Dialogue-mode in lyric poetry. The quintessential doubleness of romance. The couple as a character; culminating in three romances which comment ironically on Tristan et Iseut.
8. Occitan and French discussion- and debate-poetry. Co-authored dialogue-poems (12th - 13th c. Occitan tenso), and dialogue in narrative poems; feminine voice in other dialogue-forms (alba, pastourelle). Questions of féminité textuelle; speakers being more or less fictitious; and anonymous poems.

Male-authored psychomachia-poetry’s doubled self: Peire Rogier, Guiraut de Borneil, Charles d’Orléans;

The Occitan alba, pastorella, and tenso; the razos and vidas
Andreas Capellanus, De Amore.

9. The ideal couple; parity. The dialogue writ large – feminine presence in French romance. Co-authorship double-acts: women included in romance, as patrons and within central couples (12th century French). Eleanor of Aquitaine and Marie of Champagne. "Dialogic" romance.

Chrétien de Troyes, Erec et Enide; role of the patron in the Chevalier de la Charrette;
Companionship: the chanson de geste ex. Chanson de Roland; Erec et Enide, Amis et

Amille, the Roman de la Rose;

Abelard and Heloise;
Unorthodox perfect couples in Jean de Meun's Roman de la Rose.

TRINITY TERM

WEEK 1: IV. TRISTAN ET ISEUT: THE OTHER SIDE
1. The couple’s dark side, ill-fated twins, and tragic star-crossed lovers.

Plato’s androgyne; Ovid’s Pyramus and Thisbe;
La Châtelaine de Vergy;
Jakemes, Le Chastelain de Coucy et la Dame de Fayel.

WEEKS 2-3: Sympathy in affairs: presenting the other side(s) to the story:
2. Textual transvesticism: the Roman de Silence.

3. Comparative love-triangles in short verse narrative:

Marie de France, Lais compared to some Occitan novas;
Fabliaux;
Raimon Vidal de Besalú, Castia gilos;
Arnaut de Carcassés, Novas del Papagay.

WEEKS 4-5: EXPERIMENTAL REWRITING

4. Two ironic rewritings of Tristan et Iseut.

Aucassin et Nicolette;
Floire et Blanchefleur;
(with reference to Boethius, debate, and Occitan dialogue-poetry).

5. A parodic meta-romance: Flamenca (late 13th c.).
WEEK 6: Aftermath (later 14th c.): Machaut and Froissart; concluding return to Tristan et Iseut.

CMRS: “READING MEDIEVAL FRENCH LITERATURE THROUGH TRISTAN ET ISEUT” - 3