Aux seuils du paratexte médiéval : les auteurs français et leur nom dans les inventaires aristocratiques de la fin du Moyen Âge
Following Gérard Genette’s brief comments in Seuils, this article seeks to shed new light on the place of the author’s name within the medieval paratext. It does so by using original data collected in 41 inventories of medieval aristocratic libraries located in French-speaking areas from the 14th an...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Société de Langues et de Littératures Médiévales d'Oc et d'Oil
2021-06-01
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| Series: | Perspectives Médiévales |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/peme/37905 |
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| Summary: | Following Gérard Genette’s brief comments in Seuils, this article seeks to shed new light on the place of the author’s name within the medieval paratext. It does so by using original data collected in 41 inventories of medieval aristocratic libraries located in French-speaking areas from the 14th and 15th century, amounting to a total of 4686 entries. Analyzing the question of authorship within such documents might seem incongruous, given that they were written for bibliophilic purposes, not scholarly, bibliographical ones. However, it will be argued that the theory of paratext can be used – here, and in future research – as a means of rethinking these inventories, both as offering a wide-ranging perspective on the multiple layers of the medieval paratext, and as a series of traces reflecting how medieval readers were able to identify and classify books. The article will gather, sort and analyse the 244 cases out of 4686 where the names of 56 French authors are used by inventories as a means to designate given works. It will then offer a reflection on the nascent, minority status of the notion of authorship within a medieval literary landscape that was clearly aware of this concept, yet seemingly applied it to French literature only sporadically and with the utmost hesitancy. |
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| ISSN: | 2262-5534 |