This thesis offers an intertextual examination of the twelfth-century romance, Florimont, by Aimon de Varennes. It considers the disparity between current knowledge of the text and its dissemination during the Middle Ages, revealing a failure of critics to appreciate the significance of re-writing as a medieval practice. This provides a framework for the study of Florimont, which uses the work of Douglas Kelly on the process of medieval composition to analyse Florimont's relationship with important contemporary texts. Progressive levels of rewriting techniques are seen in relation to these textual models. Chapter 2 explores the relatively straightforward emulation of a popular romance (Le Roman d 'Alexandre), showing how Aimon benefits by deliberately positioning his text as prehistory to its famous model, whilst also engaging with the problems of romancing the life of a historical figure. Chapter 3 moves on to explore the relationship with Partonopeus de Blois, discovering a more complex use of rewriting, which engages critically with its model. This reveals Aimon's rewriting strategies as a conscious commentary on medieval composition, an idea explored further in Chapter 4. Here the fusion of two models (Le Roman d'Alexandre and Partonopeus de Blois) provides opportunities to play texts off against each other and to exploit the resulting effects. This process is analysed in detail in the final chapter, which explores Aimon's combination of elements from Partonopeus, Chretien de Troyes' Cliges and the Roman d 'Eneas in one key scene in the romance. This analysis gives us a fresh understanding of the romance, forcing us to reevaluate its position in our understanding of the Old French canon, and opening up the possibility for further appreciation both of this text and of its relationship with previous and later works.

This thesis examines the importance of gender as a criterion when studying the narrative voices in Sand's novels from <I>Indiana</I> (1832) to <I>Nanon</I> (1872). It takes as its starting point the monologic and didactic nature of much of Sand's fiction, which is often considered as having contributed to its 'unreadability' today, and moves forward hypotheses about the author's frequent choice of an authoritative, male narrative voice for her novels. The first chapter looks at a selection of texts with third- and first-person narrators, and argues that even when the narrator is not identified explicitly as male, one can frequency identify a masculine and patriarchal bias in the narrative position, and thus place in question the supposed neutrality of narrative voice. By focusing on the inconsistencies and contradictions in what these narrators say, on that which within the text escapes their control, one can cast doubt on the idea that Sand's choice of male narrator is either dictated by the literary conventions of the nineteenth century, or is to be seen as a mask behind which she as a female author could mime. I suggest instead that since they subvert the patriarchal male's claim to possess the Absolute Truth, these novels can be read as challenging the structure and authority of a patriarchal society of which the narrative discourse is an expression. The second chapter analyses the first important subset of Sand's novels which are not narrated by a single authoritative male voice, that is, the novels with multiple narrative voices. Whilst Sand's use of the multi-voiced epistolary form can be seen to repeat some of the patterns studied in the previous chapter, since one voice is often dominant, the 'fragmented' narratives of <I>Lélia, Isidora </I>and <I>La Filleule</I> subvert narrative unity and raise questions about the limits of literary representation (particularly the representability of female desire). My final chapter provides a counterpoint to the first by studying the confessional and memoir novels of the latter part of Sand's career in which female voices dominate the narrative.

Romain Rolland, <I>Jean-Christophe</I> and Germany have long been linked. Critics have traditionally assumed that Rolland was better received in Germany than in France, both as an artist and as a pacifist spokesman for humanity. This study attempts to give a representative picture of the critical reception Rolland and his <I>chef d'oeuvre Jean-Christophe</I> received in the German-speaking world 1910-1945. His reception was not, however, unreserved and uncritical, but varied both in the degree of support for his political goals as for his artistic aims. The plurality and diversity of readings is striking, with many divergent interpretations being based upon the same textual content. Socio-political readings of the text before 1918 were commonplace with German critics attempting to understand the ideological, particularly nationalist messages of <I>Jean-Christophe</I>. Liberal humanist readings followed in the Weimar era, with critics searching for the lasting significance of the novel and the man. Weimar Rolland scholars recognised in<I> Jean-Christophe</I> the passionate need for man to address both temporal and spiritual needs. They also acknowledged Rolland's intuitive understanding of life as a process of perpetual transformation, of <I>Werden</I>. Nevertheless, his life was generally the subject of greater praise than his work. The placing of the man before the artist was a trend which was to dominate Rolland criticism throughout the Weimar Republic and beyond. The relationship between the political dimension of Rolland's life and his standing as an artist was to present German critics just as their French counterparts with a considerable problem, which for many has not been satisfactorily resolved to this day.

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This thesis is a study of a fourteenth century French romance of chivalry which has yet has had no full-length work of scholar-ship devoted to it. All previous articles and references to the romance have been gathered, together, and previous theories as to the date and authorship are discussed. The primary sources, i.e. manuscripts and early printed editions, are described, and for the first time the earliest manuscripts are dated with as much precision as poasible in order to establish a terminus ad quem for the composition of the romance. The various versions of the romance presented by the different manuscripts are analysed and reasons are given for accepting one of them as the original version. From internal evidence it is suggested that the probable date of composition was 1296--1312, which accords well with the date of the earliest manuscripts, executed during the period 1320--40. The previous terminus ad quam for the romance was 1365. Since no text of this unedited work is obtainable, a detailed summary is given; thus the literary study which follows is made more clear to the reader, The literary study consists of three essays, dealing with three, separate aspects of the romance. By studying the Ethos and Aims, the Composition arid Literary Qualities and the Source and Analogues it is hoped to demonstrate that the romance is very characteristic of its time both in its subject matter and in the methods of composition which the author uses. It is also incidentally a valuable social document and provides an illuminating insight into the mentality of the fourteenth century.

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