Gender and Voice in Medieval French Literature and Song

Rachel May Golden, Katherine Kong

• Publisher: University Press of Florida
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780813069036
• eBook ISBN: 9780813057927
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: French Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

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 

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Introduction
• 1. Silence and Speech in Le Chevalier de la Charrette
• 2. It Takes Two: Considerations of Voice and Performance of the Male-Female Tenso
• 3. “Per vers o per chanso”: Grammar, Gender, and Song in Aimeric de Peguilhan’s Mangtas vetz sui enqueritz
• 4. When Courtly Song Invades History: Lyricizing Blanche de Castille
• 5. Gendered Grief, Temporality, and Reinvention in Two Northern French Crusade Songs
• 6. Real Men Preach: Constructions of Clerical Masculinity in the Context of Thirteenth-Century Crusade Preaching
• 7. Chansons polies? Expressing Gendered Identity and Experience in the Ars antiqua Motet
• 8. Jonete et Jolie: Polyphony and Gendered Voices in the Old French Motet
• 9. “Et encore ne me puis taire”: Voice, Gender, and Class in Christine de Pizan’s Political Writings, 1405–1413
• 10. Voiceover: Anne de Graville’s Beau Romant, Boccaccio’s Teseida, and Alain Chartier’s Belle Dame sans mercy
• Bibliography
• List of Contributors
• Index