Examining French literature from the medieval period, Findley revises our understanding of medieval literary composition as a largely masculine activity, suggesting instead that writing is seen in these texts as problematically gendered and often feminizing.

Examining French literature from the medieval period, Findley revises our understanding of medieval literary composition as a largely masculine activity, suggesting instead that writing is seen in these texts as problematically gendered and often feminizing.

This volume brings together literary and musical compositions of medieval France, including the Occitanian region, identifying the use of voice in these works as a way of articulating gendered identities. The contributors to this volume argue that because medieval texts were often read or sung aloud, voice is central for understanding the performance, transmission, and reception of work from the period across a wide variety of genres. These essays offer close readings of narrative and lyric poetry, chivalric romance, sermons, letters, political writing, motets, troubadour and trouvère lyric, crusade songs, love songs, and debate songs. Through literary, musical, and historiographical analyses, contributors highlight the voicing of gendered perspectives, expressions of sexuality, and power dynamics. The volume includes feminist readings, investigations of masculinity, queer theory, and intersectional approaches. The contributors interpret literary or musical works by Chrétien de Troyes, Aimeric de Peguilhan, Hue de la Ferté, the Chastelain de Couci, Jacques de Vitry, Christine de Pizan, Anne de Graville, Alain Chartier, and Giovanni Boccaccio, among others. Gender and Voice in Medieval French Literature and Song offers a valuable interdisciplinary approach and contributes to the history of women’s voices in the Middle Ages and Early Modern periods. It illuminates the critical role of voice in negotiating culture, celebrating and innovating traditions, advancing personal and political projects, and defining the literary and musical developments that shaped medieval France. Contributors: Lisa Colton | Emily J Hutchinson | Daisy Delogu | Tamara Bentley Caudill | Katherine Kong | Meghan Quinlan | Lydia M Walker | Rachel May Golden | Anna Kathryn Grau | Anne Adele Levitsky

"These innovative essays are outstanding because they examine well-known works and genres in new ways, and they revise and revitalize our thinking about them."-- Rupert T. Pickens, University of Kentucky These essays explore the various manifestations of the heroine in medieval French literature and her multiple relationships with discourse, both medieval and modern. From a discussion of 12th-century saints’ lives to an examination of 15th-century farce, they span the Middle Ages, both chronologically and generically. Focused yet considering a wide range of texts, they shine new light on the heroine and how she behaves, including how she herself uses discourse. Contents Introduction, by Kathy M. Krause Part I. Saintly Women: Hagiography, Miracle, and Epic 1. "Cume lur cumpaine et lur veisine": Women's Roles in Anglo-Norman Hagiography, by Duncan Robertson 2. Virgin, Saint, and Sinners: Women in Gautier de Coinci's Miracles de Nostre Dame, by Kathy M. Krause 3. Women’s Voices Raised in Prayer: On the "Epic Credo" in Adenet le Roi's Berte as grans pies, by David Wrisley Part II. Amorous Women: Romance and Lyric 4. Melusine's Double Binds: Foundation, Transgression, and the Genealogical Romance, by Ana Pairet 5. On Fenice’s Vain Attempts to Revise a Romantic Archetype and Chrétien’s Fabled Hostility to the Tristan Legend, by Joan Grimbert 6. The Lyric Lady in Narrative, by William D. Paden Part III. Dissenting Women: Lyric and Farce 7. "Fine Words on Closed Ears": Impertinent Women, Discordant Voices, Discourteous Words, by Nadine Bordessoule 8. Poetic Justice: The Revenge of La Guignarde in the Livre des Cent Ballades, by Sally Tartline Carden 9. Woman's Cry: Broken Language, Marital Disputes, and the Poetics of Medieval Farce, by Christopher Lucken Kathy M. Krause, assistant professor of French at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, is the author of articles in Le Moyen Age 102.2, Arizona Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and European Medieval Drama.

Medieval writers such as Chaucer, Abelard, and Langland often overlaid personal story and sacred history to produce a distinct narrative form. The first of its kind, this study traces this widely used narrative tradition to Augustine's two great histories: Confessions and City of God .

Ovid's Metamorphoses played an irrefutably important role in the integration of pagan mythology in Christian texts during the Middle Ages. This book is the only study to consider this Ovidian revival as part of a cultural shift disintegrating the boundaries between not only sacred and profane literacy but also between academic and secular politics.

Exploring medieval literary representations of the Islamic conquest of Spain in 711, Hazbun discusses chronicles, epic and clerical poetry, and early historical novels. While material on the conquest of Spain is substantial, it is understudied and this book works to fill that gap.

The Writer's Gift or the Patron's Pleasure? introduces a new approach to literary patronage through a reassessment of the medieval paragon of literary sponsorship, Charles V of France. Traditionally celebrated for his book commissions that promoted the vernacular, Charles V also deserves credit for having profoundly altered the literary economy when bypassing the traditional system of acquiring books through gifting to favor the commission. When upturning literary dynamics by soliciting works to satisfy his stated desires, the king triggered a multi-generational literary debate concerned with the effect a work's status as a solicited or unsolicited text had in determining the value and purpose of the literary enterprise. Treating first the king's commissioned writers and then canonical French late medieval authors, Deborah McGrady argues that continued discussion of these competing literary economies engendered the concept of the "writer's gift," which vernacular writers used to claim a distinctive role in society based on their triple gift of knowledge, wisdom, and literary talent.

This new Companion provides a broad and perceptive overview of the most important vernacular literary genre of the Middle Ages. Freshly commissioned, original chapters from seventeen leading scholars introduce students and general readers to the form's poetics, narrative voice and manuscript contexts, as well as its relationship to the Mediterranean world, race, gender and the emotions, among many other topics. Providing fresh perspectives on the first pan-European literary movement, essays range across a broad geographical area, including England, France, Italy, Germany and the Iberian Peninsula, as well as a varied linguistic spectrum, including Arabic, Hebrew and Yiddish. Exploring the celebration of chivalric ideals and courtly refinements, the volume excavates the tensions and traumas lying beneath decorous surface appearances. An introduction, bibliography of texts and translations as well as chapter-by-chapter reading lists complete this essential guide.

A period of great change for Europe, the thirteenth-century was a time of both animosity and intimacy for Jewish and Christian communities. In this wide-ranging collection, scholars discuss the changing paradigms in the research and history of Jews and Christians in medieval Europe, discussing law, scholarly pursuits, art, culture, and poetry.