Christine de Pisan fit son entree dans la litterature par la porte de la necessite, mais cette orientation fut en meme temps le fruit d'un choix, celui d'un poete sentant venir en lui le flot poetique et le desir de communiquer a ses contemporains ses idees les plus cheres. Aussi cette oeuvre est-elle marquee au sceau de l'individualite; avant une technique, nous trouvons une sensibilite qui oscille entre deux poles, la joie et la souffrance. Ces deux reseaux sont remarquablement bien mis en valeur par l'utilisation d'un vocabulaire etendu, varie qui renouvelle la langue psychologique de l'epoque et constitue une etape non negligeable dans l'expression litteraire des sentiments. Les mots ne sont pas les seuls elements constitutifs et les seuls moyens d'expression; il faut leur ajouter les images et les allegories que Christine a su developper avec une finesse exceptionnelle: les plus traditionnelles se transforment et se parent d'une originalite qui trouve sa source dans la sincerite de leur auteur. L'etude comparee de la souffrance et de la joie au niveau du reseau verbal permet d'apprecier la richesse foisonnante du registre de la douleur par rapport a celui de l'allegresse. Ce phenomene peut s'expliquer par plusiers faits: la vie tourmentee de l'auteur d'une part; d'autre part des faits plus litteraires tels que la tradition courtoise qui subsiste encore a l'epoque de Christine (l'alternance bonheur/malheur y est une constante), an meme temps qu'une tradition plus moyenageuse ou planent toujours le fantome de la mort et celui de la fortune. Christine reprend ces elements mais les renouvelle, marquant ainsi une evolution dans l'histoire de la poesie lyrique francaise. Toutefois, ele se detache de ses predecesseurs tels que Guillaume de Machaut, Eustache Deschamps dont elle suit, dans l'ensemble, au niveau de la technique, les regles et les conseils. Elle annonce surtout des poetes comme Charles D'Orleans et Francois Villon aupres de qui, dans les histoires litteraires, elle merite d'avoir sa place.

The literary figure of Dona Garoza, the ambiguous nun of the Archpriest of Hita's Libro de Buen Amor and that of Madame Eglentyne, the controversial prioress of the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, have been the object of scholarly scrutiny for a long time, especially in this century. The problem concerns the tone with which each woman is described; is the author mildly chastising the nun or is he damning her? In the case of Dona Garoza, critics have interpreted her in three ways: as a gentle, mildly sinning creature, as a religious failure, and as an intentionally ambiguously drawn character with both characteristics, painted thus to entertain the reader. Interestingly enough, the same three ways of interpreting Chaucer's Prioress also exist. In order to determine how Chaucer and the Archpriest of Hita regarded their nuns, it is necessary to understand how the fourteenth century would have regarded them, and whether these nuns were exceptional or typical in their faults. Such apparently ambiguous literary portraits of the two nuns are in reality satirical. The present study is an attempt to place the portraits in the proper perspective, as heirs to a long and distinguished tradition of literary wayward nuns whose real-life counterparts date back to the beginnings of monasticism. In an effort to prove our contention that, far from being an isolated literary occurrence, the wayward nun in medieval literature is the reflection of the one in the nunnery, special attention will be given in this study to those works where profligate nuns seem to have been drawn almost directly from the pages of the visitation reports by the bishops of the convents in their dioceses. Different from the studies offering a general picture of the life of the professed woman in the Middle Ages, the emphasis here will be on the evidence of immodest or dishonorable behavior in the nunnery observed through the centuries by those who felt it their duty to record it, reprove it, or mock it.

In the Middle Ages, when men were urged both to know and to love truth, pathos frequently participated in a narrative strategy and a larger philosophical vision which attribute to motive and will as much importance as to specific acts. In particular, the emotions aroused by the details of innocent suffering had become part of the communal understanding of the relationship between the physical and the spiritual realms. This study examines how the pathos of three Canterbury Tales functions in the reader's apprehension of these tales' fictional worlds. The Clerk's Tale juxtaposes the narrator's insistence on the unreasonable cruelty of Walter's tests to his absolute approval of Griselda's response. In addition, the narrator, by invoking the human responses of his audience, juxtaposes that response to Griselda's, thus encouraging the audience to question her motivation and the source of her strength. The humanizing of Griselda's suffering, far from detracting from the religious significance of the tale, enables the audience to recognize its true significance. For it highlights the nature of the Christian moral virtues which shape her responses. The emotionalism of the Prioress's Tale is both a controlled and functional part of a sincere devotional response that seeks to fuse feeling and understanding into a moment of joyous understanding. The Prioress's intrusions into the tale are not those of a "thwarted mother," weeping over pathetic suffering, but those of an instructress intent on revealing the true spiritual significance of all that transpires. The narrative strategy of Physician's Tale, on the other hand, suggests that it is intended primarily not as a moral exemplum but as a troubling vision of the world which moves its audience to self-awareness and scrutiny. The Physician--through a tale which dramatizes the dangers of the world, the ideal human nature against which each is judged, the uncertainty of mortal life, and the certainty of death for just and unjust alike--stimulates each of his listeners to get his spiritual house in order. Act and motive, thought and feeling, the temporal and the timeless--all become part of the narrative event.

In Chaucer's General Prologue there is a complex cultural code embodied in costume signs which, when decoded, enriches our perception of his portraits. Critics have never discussed the costume signs in Chaucer's portrait of the Prioress with consideration given, simultaneously, to contemporary historical records, literature, and visual arts that inform these signs. It is the purpose of this dissertation to begin a study of the Prioress with an examination of her costume and Chaucer's costume rhetoric, an approach opposite to the traditional approach that first assesses the Prioress' character as deserving mild satire and refers to her garments and accessories as supporting evidence. In contrast, this study demonstrates that Chaucer's costume rhetoric portrays the Prioress in appropriate costume according to late fourteenth-century standards. To this end, Chapter I refutes the criticism of impropriety in the Prioress' headdress, providing the background for appraisal by examining convent rules, visitation records, wills, and Sumptuary Laws. In addition, an analysis of literary treatment of nuns' headdresses, with special attention to rhetorical traditions of the description of womanly beauty, traditions that parallel those of the visual arts in presenting depictions of beautiful ideals as lovely women, reveals that Chaucer's description of the Prioress' headdress conforms to these ideals. Chapter II establishes the propriety of the Prioress' cloak with evidence from historical records, literature, and the visual arts. This cloak is bien fait, according to historical data; further analysis of the literary treatment of nuns' habits demonstrates that Chaucer follows the pattern of Le Roman de la Rose in its presentation of hypocrits whose actions belie their proper costumes. Evidence from medieval visual arts further supports the thesis of the Prioress' proper cloak. The Prioress' rosary and brooch are analysed, in Chapter III, and found appropriate for a prioress and pilgrim, according to historical, scientific, literary, and religious data. Contemporary iconographic traditions support this interpretation of Chaucer's costume rhetoric. Chaucer's eclectic costume rhetoric places the Prioress within religious, artistic, literary, scientific, and historical traditions; analysis of this rhetoric enables us to separate her proper exterior from her actions, thus providing kaleidoscopic views of the Prioress.

This work traces the issue of salvation for "virtuous pagans" (those who lived as virtuously as possible without the benefit of Christian revelation) as a theological and literary concern of the fourteenth century. Theologically, the issue is related to Christ's Harrowing of Hell, an act which initiated a new era of mercy and made possible the notion of pagan salvation. From the first through the fourteenth centuries, the Church evolved a succession of theories to explain these matters: that Christ descended to convert (and possibly baptize) the pagan souls He found in Hell; that Limbo existed as an intermediate state between bliss and punishment for virtuous pagans; that salvation was possible for pagans who had done their best during their lifetimes. Related folklore and legends arose (notably, the legend of Trajan's rescue from Hell through the intervention of St. Gregory), and the three books of the Divine Comedy illustrate Dante the pilgrim's growing enlightenment on pagan salvation. Three Middle English works from the latter fourteenth century also address this concern. St. Erkenwald demonstrates the absolute necessity of grace for salvation and the limitations of natural virtue. Erkenwald's "harrowing" of a pagan soul celebrates the continuing power of Christ's mercy and His continuing reign over Hell. On the other hand, Piers Plowman clarifies the role of works, for the Dreamer cannot rely on baptism or intellectual inquiry for salvation. Also, whereas St. Erkenwald emphasized the positive aspects of the Harrowing, Piers Plowman closes with emphasis on the negative. As the turning point of divine history, the Harrowing ushered in a period of grace which is now drawing to a close. The final Harrowing, or Doomsday, is imminent, and the Church will be found wanting. The epilogue of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde raises the question of Troilus as a virtuous pagan. Several elements of the poem, though, suggest that Troilus is a parody of the virtuous pagan figure: he sidesteps Boethius' reasoning on free will, and he is liberated from the "hell" of his desires to reach the false heaven of Criseyde's arms. Troilus also fares poorly when compared to the virtuous pagans of legend. However, Chaucer leaves Troilus' fate shrouded in the mysteries of Christ's mercy. Indeed, ultimately all three poems conclude that, whatever the role of man's efforts in salvation, the workings of grace are indisputable and yet unknowable--the only answer the medieval mind could devise for the paradox of the virtuous pagan.

Numerous studies have been devoted to the Lays of Marie de France, but few consider the Lays as a cohesive unity. Most critics deal only with one theme or one aspect of the Lays or examine each lay as a separate entity. Drawing on anthropological and archetypal criticism and more particularly on the works of Mircea Eliade and Gilbert Durand, the present study highlights the unity of the Lays, as well as their ongoing literary value, by showing how a mythical dimension underlies the desire for happiness, and how Marie by depicting the social and cultural occupations and the mentality of her time, adapts and recreates the universal myth of the Lost Paradise. By focusing on the mythical background of the Lays, I will examine the concepts of "time" and "space" in order to illustrate how the heroes and heroines try to overcome the human condition, i.e. duality, by (re)-creating or (re)-integrating a harmonious universe, paradise, so as to escape death and achieve a kind of transcendency. The Edenic world the heroes and heroines turn to is based on other dimensions than the world that surrounds them. "Time" and "space" are "qualitatively" different. In most lays, it is the present of the beloved one that structures "space" and determines "time," which reveals their "true" significance. Some heroes and heroines turn to the past, in a nostalgic evocation of lost happiness, as do for instance the heroes and heroines in Laustic and Chaitivel. The majority of Marie's protagonists such as Guigemar, Lanval or the lover in Deus Amanz, however, go forward. For them paradise lies in the future. In the former lays, "nostalgia" characterizes stasis whereas in the latter lays the concepts of "initiation" and "rebirth" focus on the theme of the "quest," and put these lays in a dynamic perspective. Not all heroes and heroines attain harmony or reach paradise. It is relevant nevertheless that those who do, do so on different levels (individual and social) and through different means (love, friendship, poetry), which greatly accounts for the variety and liveliness of the Lays. In essence, the Lays all tell the same story but variously describe the unique manner in which "adventure" comes to these individual protagonists, who have in common the desire for earthly paradise.

Meraugis l'empopiné, Silence li vallés qui est mescine and Calogrenant la pucele are three characters of three different verse romances of the 13th century (Meraugis de Portlesguez of Raoul de Houdenc, Le Roman de Silence of Heldris de Cornouailles and Claris et Laris), in which the authors address the subject of cross-dressing. This type of disguise, which is fairly widespread in medieval literature, has inspired several medievalists in the field of Gender Studies. However, it is possible to read the cross-dressing of these three characters from another critical standpoint and to see it as a reflection of the authors' poetics. In the verse romance of the 13th century, the textile metaphor – that refers to both the fabric that covers the body and the text in an etymological point of view – turns out as the author's parodic strategy on certain occasion. The cross-dressing of a character would therefore be, in terms of the poetics of the work, a bestornement (reversal) of the motif of the Arthurian tradition. Particular attention will first be given to textiles in general and then to cross-dressing. Finally, some motif differentiated from the textile metaphor will be studied to determine in broader terms how these three writers of the 13th century parody the literary conventions. / Meraugis l'empopiné, Silence li vallés qui est mescine et Calogrenant la pucele sont des personnages de trois romans en vers du XIIIe siècle (Meraugis de Portlesguez de Raoul de Houdenc, Le Roman de Silence d'Heldris de Cornouailles et Claris et Laris), qui abordent tous la thématique du travestissement. Cette forme de déguisement, qui abonde dans la littérature médiévale, a particulièrement inspiré les médiévistes intéressés par le domaine des Gender Studies. Il est néanmoins possible de lire le travestissement de ces trois personnages à partir d'une autre approche critique et d'y voir le reflet de la poétique des auteurs. En effet, il arrive dans le roman en vers du XIII e siècle, que la métaphore textile – qui d'un point de vue étymologique renvoie à la fois au tissu qui recouvre un corps et au texte même – devienne une stratégie parodique de l'auteur. Au travestissement d'un personnage correspond dès lors, sur le plan de la poétique de l'œuvre, un bestornement (renversement) des motifs arthuriens de la tradition. Une attention particulière sera d'abord accordée à l'ensemble des références textiles présentes dans le corpus à l'étude, puis aux travestissements thématiques. Enfin, certains motifs dissociés de l'univers textile feront l'objet d'une étude pour définir plus largement comment s'articule la parodie chez ces trois romanciers du XIIIe siècle.

During the 14th and 15th centuries, some of the romances and epics stemming from the central Middle Ages were translated into prose at the Court of Burgundy. Among those are Chrétien de Troyes' Cligès (ca. 1176) and Gerbert de Montreuil's le Roman de la Violette (ca. 1227-1229), both of which were rewritten into prose by anonymous authors around the middle of the 15th century (ca. 1455 and ca. 1451). Although literary criticism as often only seen the documentary value of these mises en prose, the poetics of the romance went through various transformations from the 12th to the 15th century. Weaved with intertextuality, both Cligès and le Roman de la Violette originally present themselves as antiromances holding the keys to their own criticism. But as the intertextual strategies undergo massive changes, the antiromance aspects of the versified romances disappear from the rewritten works. Those are then perceived as simple stories of romance and chivalry (« d'armes et d'amour »), influencing the modern idea of the medieval romance. This thesis will examine how the strategies of self-reflexivity, evident marks of intertextuality, literary techniques and parodic games involving commonplaces and motifs of the marvellous evolve from the sources to the rewritten versions. This comparison will allow us to better define the practice of the mise en prose and see how the rewritten novels fit into a new « horizon of expectations » (Hans Robert Jauss) brought by the 15th century. / Le Moyen Âge central a vu quelques-uns de ses romans et chansons de geste être mis en prose à la cour de Bourgogne au cours des XIVe et XVe siècles. Parmi ceux-ci figure Cligès, de Chrétien de Troyes (ca. 1176), et le Roman de la Violette (ca. 1227-1229), de Gerbert de Montreuil, réécrits en prose au milieu du XVe siècle (ca. 1455 et ca. 1451) par des auteurs anonymes. Si la critique s'est souvent limitée à attribuer une valeur documentaire aux mises en prose, il n'en demeure pas moins que la poétique du roman subit, du XIIe au XVe siècle, d'importantes modifications. Pétris d'intertextualité, le Cligès et le Roman de la Violette apparaissent comme des antiromans capables de procéder à leur propre examen critique. On assiste toutefois à une véritable redéfinition des stratégies intertextuelles et parodiques dans les réécritures en prose, si bien que la dimension antiromanesque qui caractérisait les romans en vers disparaît des texte remaniés, qui s'apparentent dès lors à l'image de simple récit « d'armes et d'amour » que l'histoire littéraire a gardée du roman médiéval. Il s'agira donc de voir comment les stratégies autoréflexives, les marques d'intertextualité manifestes, les techniques littéraires et les jeux parodiques avec les lieux communs et les motifs merveilleux évoluent des « textes-sources » aux réécritures. Ce travail comparatif permettra tout aussi bien de mieux définir la pratique de la mise en prose que de révéler en quoi les romans remaniés correspondent à un nouvel « horizon d'attente » (Hans Robert Jauss) propre au XVe siècle.

The first part of this thesis is an analysis of the priest in a selection of erotic fabliaux written between the 12th and 14th centuries (Gombert et les deus clers, Le Prestre taint, Le Vilain de Bailluel and Le Prestre ki abevete). While the "anticlericalism" of the fabliaux is toned down by the differences between the types of the cleric and the priest, this analysis dwells on the figures of the deceived priest and the deceitful one. Through the study of the deceitful priest, it demonstrates that the duper offers a mise en abyme of the author and the jongleur in action, used by the fabliau to rehabilitate the fiction and to examine the power of speech and language, which helps unveil the "mecanic" of the genre and the types of medieval literature.The second part of this thesis is a narrative text that uses some traits of the drama genre to create a distance between the reader and the characters, who live in a small village where a certain lack of interest for religion rules. These inhabitants will be thrilled by the announce and arrival of a young priest, Adagio. Soon, this newcomer will become the object of all discussions and all rumors, so much so that he will exist only through others' words. / Dans un premier temps, ce mémoire propose une analyse de la poétique du personnage du prêtre dans un choix de fabliaux érotiques écrits entre les XIIe et XIVe siècles (Gombert et les deus clers, Le Prestre taint, Le Vilain de Bailluel et Le Prestre ki abevete). Tout en permettant de nuancer « l'anticléricalisme » des fabliaux par la différenciation des types du clerc et du prêtre, cette analyse s'attarde à la figure du prêtre trompé et du prêtre trompeur. Par l'étude de ce personnage rusé, elle concourt à démontrer que le prêtre trompeur constitue bien souvent une mise en abyme des figures de l'auteur et du jongleur en représentation dont se sert le fabliau pour réhabiliter la fiction et interroger la puissance de la parole et du langage, ce qui contribue à dévoiler la « mécanique » du genre et des motifs de la littérature médiévale. La seconde partie de ce mémoire, dite d'écriture littéraire, propose un texte narratif qui utilise certaines caractéristiques du genre dramatique pour créer un effet de distanciation devant le spectacle de ce village, où règne un certain désintérêt religieux, mais qui se voit heurté par l'annonce et l'arrivée d'un jeune prêtre, Adagio. Ce nouvel arrivant deviendra le sujet de toutes les discussions et de toutes les rumeurs, au point de n'exister qu'à travers la parole d'autrui.

This thesis seeks to assert the literary merit of the Middle English alliterative translation, William of Palerne, which has been dismissed by earlier critics of the poem as, at best, a mediocre work by an incompetent poet. It demonstrates that previous criticism of the poem has generally misunderstood its key elements, such as magic, as well as the poet's use of certain self-reflexive techniques to convey meaning. By tracing the poet's treatment of the magical and pseudo-magical events in the poem, and the alterations that the English translator makes to the original French version, the thesis reveals the sophistication involved in the poet's examination of human nature and of order in society. Furthermore, the thesis illustrates that through the repeated models of perception in the romance, the poet actually provides his audience with models for reading the text, and stresses the importance of interpretation by exploring the ability of outer appearance to represent inner Truth.