Poetic Knowledge in Late Medieval France

Conference

Poetry, Knowledge and Community in Late Medieval France

The conference investigated poetry's role in transmitting and transforming knowledge, and the communities which it thereby assumes or creates, in France (including Occitania) in the period 1270-1530.

Plenary speakers at the conference were David Hult (Professor of French, Berkeley), Stephen Nichols (Chair and Professor of Medieval French Literature, Johns Hopkins University), Nancy Regalado (Professor of French, NYU) and Michel Zink (Professeur au Collège de France).

Wednesday 1 November

2:00 Welcome, François Rigolot (Princeton University)
Opening remarks, Sarah Kay (Princeton University)

2:15-3:45
Chair: Adrian Armstrong (University of Manchester)

Stephen G. Nichols (Johns Hopkins University) 'The Enigma of Wisdom: 'Translating' Philosophy in Medieval Poetry'

3:45-4:15 break for tea/coffee

4:15-6:15 Citation and lyric insertion
Chair: Evelyn Birge Vitz (New York University)

David Wrisley (American University of Beirut), 'Prosifying Lyrical Insertions in the 15th-century Violette (Gérard de Nevers)'

Julien Abed (Université de Paris-IV), 'Oracular poetry as counterpoint: The inclusion of the Sibyls' knowledge in the French feminist poetry of the 15th century'

Jennifer Saltzstein (University of Pennsylvania), 'Refrains in the Jeu de Robin et Marion: History of a Citation'

6:30 reception hosted by the department of French and Italian

Thursday 2 November

9:00-10:30 Narrative schemata
Chair: Angelina Stelmach (University of Pennsylvania)

Amandine Mussou (École normale supérieure, Paris), 'Fonctions poétique et didactique de la partie d'échecs dans Les Eschés amoureux en vers'

Francesca Braida (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris), 'Le songe: une figure et un genre du roman en vers pour transmettre la connaissance de l'ici-bas et de l'au-delà'

10:30-11:00 break

11:00-12:30 Academic knowledge/poetic forms
Chair: François Cornilliat (University of Rutgers)

Lori J. Walters (Florida State University), '"Tout discrete creature cherche a savoir." Christine de Pizan and Jean Gerson on Poetry, Knowledge, and Wisdom'

Mishtooni Bose (Christ Church, Oxford), 'Jean Gerson, poet'

12:30-2:30 lunch

2:30-4:00 Knowledge and love
Chair: Vance Smith (Princeton University)

Joyce Coleman (University of Oklahoma), 'Doctors of Love: The Medieval French Love-Poet Depicted as Magister'

Deborah McGrady (Tulane University), 'Voicing Difference: Poetic Intrusions and Degrees of Truth in the Art d'amours en prose'

4:00-4:30 break

4:30-6:00
Chair: Sylvia Huot (University of Cambridge)

Nancy Freeman Regalado (New York University), 'Love Lyrics, Moral Wisdom, and the Material Book'

Reception hosted by the Program in Medieval Studies

Friday 3 November

9:00-10:30 Poetry and politics
Chair: Peter Eubanks (Princeton University)

Thelma Fenster (Fordham University), 'Hearing Voices: Knowledge, Opinion, and the Songe véritable'

Denis Hüe (Université de Haute-Bretagne, Rennes-II), 'Le prince chez Meschinot, mise en forme d'un objet poétique/politique'

10:30-11:00 break

11:00-12:30
Chair: Kevin Brownlee (University of Pennsylvania)

David F. Hult (University of California, Berkeley), 'Poetry and the Translation of Knowledge in Jean de Meun'

lunch/afternoon break

4:00-4:30 tea

4:30-6:30 Christine de Pizan
Chair: Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski (University of Pittsburgh)

Suzanne Akbari (University of Toronto), 'The Movement from Verse to Prose in the Allegories of Christine de Pizan'

Julia Simms Holderness (Michigan State University), 'Christine de Pizan on Poetry and Compilation'

Karen Fresco (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), 'The Place of Lyric Poetry in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Manuscript Anthologies Containing Works by Christine de Pizan'

conference dinner

Saturday 4 November

9:00-10:30 Historical knowledge
Chair: Finn Sinclair (University of Manchester)

Kathy M. Krause (University of Missouri-Kansas City), 'Poetic Manuscripts of Genealogy and Power in Picardy'

Dorothea Kullmann (University of Toronto), 'Epic Songs as History Books? Metaliterary Remarks in 14th-Century French chansons de geste'

10:30-11:00 break

11:00-12:30
Chair: Adrian Armstrong (University of Manchester)

Michel Zink (Collège de France), 'Les razos et l'idée de la poésie'

12:30-12:45 closing remarks

The conference was free and open to the public

The 'Poetic Knowledge' team have been delighted and inspired by the quality of the papers and discussions (both formal and informal), and by the productive connections which researchers have been able to make. The event will help a great deal in developing our thinking about the issues, in ways which may take some time to become fully apparent.

Intellectual developments

Community: We have been encouraged to think much more concretely about what kind of communities are involved in different instances. The diverse manifestations of 'community' include the close intellectual affinities between long-standing intimates, such as Christine de Pizan and Jean Gerson; unintended and perhaps geographically distant readers; local or regional traditions; and the real or imaginary audience of a manuscript.

Knowledge: Various contributions have helped map fields to which the team has not yet devoted much attention, notably history and politics. There is an overwhelming sense that knowledge has, in a number of ways, a human scale. Theology is bound up with moral and social ends. Poetry is tied to particular experience, to the individual moral or ethical subject, to the thinking subject. Abstraction and philosophical reflexion contain a significant insertion of the personal.

Poetry: Most striking in this area is the awareness that poetry entails different kinds of embellishment: rhyme, for instance, or richly figurative langauge. A question to be considered is: to what extent do these embellishments serve as vehicles for knowledge, and do they also constitute a means of distorting it?

Practical developments

It will be important to continue the various discussions which began at the conference, maintaining intellectual momentum and developing a virtual community of scholars in the area. All participants are already on the project's mailing list (though colleagues may of course unsusbcribe if they so wish). Abstracts of papers will be posted on the project's website, as will some of the conceptual discussions from the team's regular programme of meetings. In addition, we hope to set up an interactive discussion board accessible to all those on our mailing list.

This conference forms part of the AHRC-funded project Poetic Knowledge in Late Medieval France based in the Universities of Cambridge and Manchester and was made possible by the generosity of the following at Princeton University: the Departments of Comparative Literature, English, and French and Italian; the Medieval Studies Program; the Davis Center; the Center for French Studies; the Center for Human Values; the Dean's Office; the Foulet Fund; the Humanities Council; and the President's Office.