Some of the greatest names in medieval literature, Chretien de Troyes, Jean de Meun, Brunetto Latini, and Chaucer, to name a few, proudly include their vernacular adaptations of popular Latin sources within the corpus of their literary work. Yet, as Peter Dembowski points out, critics have paid little attention to the actual mechanics involved in the vernacularization practices. While the common medieval literary processes of auctoritas, translatio, and conjointure linked by Karl D. Uitti to the development of courtly vernacular literature are known to function in the transference of source texts to the vernacular, the role of rhetoric, an aspect of the conjointure process, has as yet remained unexplored. / Taking as its study the popular Latin tale collection, the Disciplina clericalis which appeared as a common source in almost all the vernacular literatures of Western Europe and which enjoyed a tremendous popularity throughout the Middle Ages, this study analyzes how one French vernacularized tale collection, the anonymous thirteenth-century Chastoiement d'un pere a son fils and the Decameron recast through rhetorical manipulation three of the tales found in the Disciplina. / The two prologues of the vernacularizations reveal the outline of a specific rhetorical scheme employed by the vernacularizer in the "adaptation" of the individual tales. Each of the clerks chooses the rhetorical method of argumentation best suited to his purpose. The tales present themselves as the elaborations of one part of the particular rhetorical scheme chosen by the clerk. Thus, rhetorical training not only aides the medieval clerk in the embellishment of the material but also serves him in the "translation" of the material to the new audience. Just as the development of courtly literature depended on the scholastic practices of the interdependent literary processes of auctoritas, translatio, and conjointure, so too the establishment of "bourgeois" literature relied on these same procedures as exercised by the clerks of the courtly tradition. Through these processes and rhetorical techniques, the clerks produced works in the vernacular that took their place next to the source texts. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-08, Section: A, page: 3022. / Major Professor: Lori Walters. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1993.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_76995 |
| Contributors | Roman, Marco David., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 229 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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