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This dissertation examines the procedure of musical borrowing, in which melodies are recycled or reworked, in the sung, vernacular poetry of the troubadours. Their usage of the practice (specifically, that of contrafacture, wherein pre-existing melodies are retexted) is attested to in poetic treatises, confirmed by a small number of examples transmitted with musical notation, and further supported by a large body of poems that share a versification structure. The paucity of extant melodies, however, has prevented scholars from fully exploring the musical implications of the technique. Through close and multidisciplinary analysis of music, text, image, and material object, this study uses intermusicality as an entry point to address larger questions about the musical practice of the Occitan poet-composers: how were songs crafted, and what is the relationship between music and text? How was this repertoire spread, and what roles did oral and notated transmission play? How would audiences have interpreted the songs of the troubadours? To that end, I examine a series of case studies drawn from Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, f. fr. 22543. Throughout, I characterize musical borrowing as a generative procedure used commonly by the troubadours, and foreground the connections (aural and otherwise) that arise as a consequence. As such, the dissertation offers a new way of understanding the musico-poetic practice of the troubadours, with respect to both mechanics and meaning, through the lens of a well-attested but largely-silenced compositional practice.

The motif of 'exile-and-return' is found in works from a wide range of periods and linguistic traditions. The standard narrative pattern depicts the return of wrongfully exiled heroes or peoples to their former abode or their establishment of a superior home, which signals a restoration of order. The appeal of the pattern lies in its association with undue loss, rightful recovery and the universal vindication of the protagonist. Though by no means confined to any one period or region, the particular narrative pattern of the exile-and-return motif is prevalent in vernacular texts of England and Spain around 1170–1250. This is the subject of the thesis. The following research engages with scholarship on Anglo-Norman romances and their characteristic use of exile-and-return that sets them apart from continental French romances, by highlighting the widespread employment of this narrative pattern in Spanish poetic works during the same period. The prevalence of the pattern in both literatures is linked to analogous interaction with continental French works, the relationship between the texts and their political contexts, and a common responses to wider ecclesiastical reforms. A broader aim is to draw attention to further, unacknowledged similarities between contemporary texts from these different linguistic traditions, as failure to take into account the wider, multilingual literary contexts of this period leads to incomplete arguments. The methodology is grounded in close reading of four main texts selected for their exemplarity, with some consideration of the historical context and contemporary intertexts: the Romance of Horn, the Cantar de mio Cid, Gui de Warewic and the Poema de Fernán González. A range of intertexts are considered alongside in order to elucidate the particular concerns and distinctive use of exile-and-return in the main works.

Comment le motif de la marque insensible du diable a-t-il pu se frayer un chemin au sein du discours théologique, juridique et médical de la fin de la Renaissance jusqu'à s'imposer comme une pièce essentielle du crime de sorcellerie? Selon quels mécanismes et à partir de quels systèmes de croyance cette marque corporelle en est-elle venue à connaître une si large diffusion et une aussi grande acceptation tant chez les gens du livres que parmi les couches populaires? En cette époque marquée par la grande chasse aux sorcières et le développement de l'investigation scientifique, l'intérêt que les savants portent à cette étrange sémiologie constitue une porte d'accès privilégiée pour aborder de front la dynamique du déplacement des frontières que la démonologie met en oeuvre au sein des différents champs du savoir. Cette thèse a pour objectif d'étudier le réseau des mutations épistémologiques qui conditionne l'émergence de la marque du diable dans le savoir démonologique français à la charnière des XVIe et XVIIe siècles. Nous examinerons par quels cheminements l'altérité diabolique s'est peu à peu intériorisée dans le corps et l'âme des individus sous l'influence grandissante des vertus de l'empirisme, de la méthode expérimentale et de l'observation. En analysant la construction rhétorique de la théorie des marques du diable et en la reliant aux changements qui s'opèrent sur la plateforme intellectuelle de l'Ancien Régime, nous entendons éclairer la nouvelle distribution qui s'effectue entre les faits naturels et surnaturels ainsi que les modalités d'écriture pour en rendre compte. / How did the motive of the Devil's Mark wend its way through the theological, legal and medical discourse at the end of the Renaissance to such a point that it became a critical component of the crime of witchcraft? Through what mechanisms and what belief systems did this idea of the Devil's Mark become so widely disseminated and greatly accepted among both the scholars and the general public? In a period marked by the Great Witch Hunt, as well as the development of scientific investigation, the fact that the scholars are interested in this strange semiotics is a very interesting starting point to address head-on the shift in boundaries that demonology brought about within these different fields of knowledge. The purpose of this thesis is to study the network of the epistemological mutations that shaped how the Devil's Mark emerged in French demonological knowledge between the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th century. We will review how diabolical otherness gradually became internalized in the individuals' heart and soul under the increasingly powerful influence of empiricism, experimental method, and observation. We will analyze the rhetorical construction surrounding the Devil's Mark theory and relate it to the changes that took place in the intellectual platform of the Ancien Régime in order to shed light on the new classification that appeared between natural and supernatural facts, as well as on the rhetorical strategies used to report on them.

Wilderness landscape, a setting common in Romantic literature and painting, is generally overlooked in the art of the Middle Ages. While the medieval garden and the city are well mapped, the medieval wilderness remains relatively trackless. Yet the use of setting to represent interior experience may be traced back to the Neo-Platonic use of space and movement to define spiritual development. Separating themselves as far as possible from the material world, such writers as Origen and Plotinus avoided use of representational detail in their spatial models; however, both the visual artists and the authors who adopted the Neo-Platonic paradigm, elaborated their emotional spaces with the details of the classical locus amoenus and of the exegetical desert, while retaining the philosophical concern with spiritual transition. Analysis of wilderness as an image for spiritual and emotional transition in medieval literature and art relates the texts to an iconographic tradition which, along with motifs of city and garden, provides a spatial representation of interior progress, as the medieval dialectic process provides a paradigm for intellectual resolution. Such an analysis relates the motif to the core of medieval intellectual experience, and further suggests significant connections between medieval and modern narratives in regard to the representation of interior experience. The Divine Comedy and related Continental texts employ both classical and exegetical sources in the representation of psychological transition and spiritual conversion. Similar techniques are also apparent in English texts such as Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxon elegies, in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, and Troilus and Criseyde, and in the northern English The Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. These literary texts, further, include both ideas and techniques which are analogous to those of visual arts, where frescos and altarpieces show the wilderness as metaphor for transition, and where manuscript illuminations relate this visual concept to texts. Thus, the wilderness as a landscape of personal crisis becomes in the Middle Ages a significant part of the representation of interior experience in painting and in literature.

Ce travail analyse les transformations du Graal en comparant sa représentation dans les romans médiévaux et dans trois textes de théâtre modernes. Le Graal, apparu dans la littérature au Moyen Âge, reste une source d'inspiration pour les écrivains modernes au point de gagner, avec le temps, un statut légendaire. L'objet de prédilection de la littérature arthurienne a évolué de façon significative dès le Moyen Âge, où il reste cependant confiné aux formes narratives. Après le « festival scénique sacré » (Bühnenweihfestspiel), Parsifal, de Wagner présenté en 1882 à Bayreuth, des œuvres plus récentes réactualisent le mythe en cherchant à l'adapter au théâtre. Jean Cocteau, en 1937, dans Les Chevaliers de la Table Ronde, présente un Graal inaccessible, immatériel. En 1948, Julien Gracq, dans Le Roi Pêcheur, inscrit le Graal dans l'opposition entre le profane et le sacré. Jacques Roubaud et Florence Delay, dans les éditions de 1977 et 2005 de Graal Théâtre, optent pour une récriture où les représentations du mythe se côtoient et se confrontent. Ces textes de théâtre modernes, où la représentation du Graal se situe au cœur du projet d'écriture, entrent ainsi en relation directe avec les œuvres médiévales. Ils s'inscrivent dans une redéfinition de l'objet qui se renouvelle sans cesse depuis Le Conte du Graal de Chrétien de Troyes. Dans les trois cas, la représentation du Graal entretient des relations contradictoires de filiation et de rupture avec la littérature arthurienne de l'époque médiévale. L'hypothèse principale de cette recherche se situe dans la problématique de la récriture comme transformation d'un héritage. Plus précisément, il sera question de comprendre comment la représentation du Graal dans les textes de théâtre pose problème et comment cette question est modulée, travaillée par les auteurs en termes rhétoriques, stylistiques et dramaturgiques. L'utilisation de la parodie, d'anachronismes et de voix dramatiques nouvelles, par exemple, permet aux auteurs modernes de revisiter et de changer le rapport à l'objet. Le Graal se redéfinit dans des contextes historiques et dans un genre distincts de leur source du Moyen Âge. / This work examines the transformations of the Holy Grail from medieval romances to modern plays. The Holy Grail, which first appeared in the Middle Ages, remains a source of inspiration for modern writers and gained, over time, a legendary status. This important feature of Arthurian literature has evolved significantly since the Middle Ages, where it remained however confined to narrative forms. After the festival (Bühnenweihfestspiel) where Wagner’s Parsifal was first presented in 1882 in Bayreuth, more recent works have renewed the myth by adapting it to the theatre. Jean Cocteau, in 1937, in Les Chevaliers de la Table Ronde, presented an inaccessible and intangible Grail. In 1948, Julien Gracq, in Le Roi Pêcheur, placed the Grail at the core of the opposition between profane and sacred. Jacques Roubaud and Florence Delay, in editions of 1977 and 2005 of Graal Théatre, opted for a rewriting where contradictory representations of the myth coexist. These modern dramas, where the representation of the Grail is at the center of the writing experience, are thus in direct connection with medieval works. They are part of a redefinition of the object that has constantly renewed itself since Chrétien de Troyes’ Conte du Graal. In all three cases, the representation of the Grail shows conflicting relationships with the medieval Arthurian literary heritage. The main hypothesis of this research lies in the idea that rewriting has to do with the transformation of a legacy. More specifically, it comes to understand how the representation of the Holy Grail is dealt with in modern dramas, how it is modulated by the authors in rhetorical, stylistic and dramaturgical terms. The use of parody, anachronisms and new dramatic voices, for example, allows modern authors to revisit and change their relation to this object. The Grail is thus redefined in different historical contexts and in a genre quite distinct from medieval romances.

This thesis investigates conceptual networks —systems of organising, understanding and explaining thought and knowledge— and the ways in which they underlie both text and its mise en page across a range of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century French and Catalan literary texts and their manuscript witnesses. Each of the three chapters explores a separate corpus of texts, using two of four interrelated network theories: Michel Serres’ notion of parasites and hosts as the basic interconnecting units that combine to constitute all relational networks; the ubiquitous organizational tree; Gilles Deleuze’s concept of the fold as the primary factor in producing differentiation and identity; and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s unruly, anti-hierarchical and anti-arborescent rhizomatic systems. The first chapter engages primarily with parasites and trees; the second with trees and folds; and the third with folds and rhizomes. However, resonances with the other network theories are discussed as they occur, in order to demonstrate the fundamentally interconnected and often interchangeable nature of these systems. Each chapter includes close analysis of manuscript witnesses of the texts under discussion. The first chapter, ‘Saints Denis and Fanuel: Parasitism and Arborescence on the Manuscript Page’, examines parasitic and arboreal networks in two hagiographic texts: late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century prose redactions of the Vie de Saint Denis, and the thirteenth‐century hagiographic romance Li Romanz de Saint Fanuel. The second chapter, ‘Ramon Llull’s Folding Forests: The World, the Tree and the Book’, addresses arborescent and folding structures in Llull’s encyclopaedic Arbre de ciència [Tree of Science], composed between 1295 and 1296. The third chapter, ‘Transgender Genealogy: Turning, Folding and Crossing Gender’, considers three characters in medieval French texts who can be read as transgender: Saint Fanuel; the King of Torelore in Aucassin et Nicolette; and Blanchandin/e in Tristan de Nanteuil. The chapter explores the ways in which these characters’ queer trajectories can be understood through conceptions of directionality which relate to the fold and the rhizome.

This dissertation examines the concept of intention and its relationship to the idea of the moral self in late medieval England. Late medieval English writers often identified intention, as opposed to action, as the site of moral identity. Drawing on medieval legal distinctions between intended and unintended wrongdoings, penitential and confessional definitions of sin as intention (as opposed to sinful action), this dissertation traces the development of intention-based concepts of the moral self in English chronicles, parliamentary legislation and petitions related to the Rising of 1381, Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, The Testimony of William Thorpe, and The Book of Margery Kempe;. These texts employed contemporary notions of intention to represent interiority and to establish morally coherent narratives. Late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century writers, however, not only draw on contemporary discussions of morality but also reshape them, applying theories of intention but nuancing and transforming them in the process. These discussions of intention inform our understanding the late medieval notion of the subject.