Representing the dead : epitaph fictions in late-medieval France / Helen J. Swift.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Swift, Helen J., 1979- author.

Series:

Gallica (Woodbridge (Suffolk, England)) ; v. 40.

Gallica, 1749-091X ; volume 40

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Death in literature--Early works to 1800.

Death in literature.

Death in art--Early works to 1800.

Death in art.

Physical Description:

xiv, 334 pages, 4 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : D.S. Brewer, 2016.

Summary:

Who am I when I am dead? Several late-medieval French writers used literary representation of the dead as a springboard for exploring the nature of human being. Death is a critical moment for identity definition: one is remembered, forgotten or, worse, misremembered. Works in prose and verse by authors from Alain Chartier to Jean Bouchet record characters' deaths, but what distinguishes them as epitaph fictions is not their commemoration of the deceased, so much as their interrogation of how, by whom and to what purpose posthumous identity is constituted. Far from rigidly memorialising the dead, they exhibit a productive messiness in the processes by which identity is composed in the moment of its decomposition as a complex interplay between body, voice and text. The cemeteries, hospitals, temples and testaments of fifteenth- and early-sixteenth-century literature, from the "Belle Dame sans mercy" querelle toLe Jugement poetic de I'honneur femenin, present a wealth of ambulant corpses, disembodied voices, animated effigies, martyrs for love and material echoes of the past which invite readers to approach epitaphic identity as a challenging question: here lies who, exactly? In its broadest context, this study casts fresh light on ideas of selfhood in medieval culture as well as on contemporary conceptions of the capacities and purposes of literary representation itself. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Framing Identity: 'je suis' and 'cy gist1 37

2 Identity and/as Echo: the 'Belle Dame' querelle and Le Jardin de plaisance 91

3 Dying to be told: storytelling and exemplarity 'selon le stile Jehan Bocace' 146

4 Placing the Dead: Cemeteries, Hospitals and Temples 201.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781843844365

1843844362

OCLC:

962405510