Camille Bellenger, Principes, usages et fonctions de l’écriture visuelle dans les Miracles de Nostre Dame de Gautier de Coinci
Gautier de Coinci (c. 1177-1236), a well-learned Benedictine monk, introduces himself as the translateur (translator) of the Miracles de Nostre Dame before claiming to be their escrivain (writer): from latin proses, he elaborates a collection of rhyming octosyllabic tales in romance language. What i...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Société de Langues et de Littératures Médiévales d'Oc et d'Oil
2024-12-01
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| Series: | Perspectives Médiévales |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/peme/60897 |
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| Summary: | Gautier de Coinci (c. 1177-1236), a well-learned Benedictine monk, introduces himself as the translateur (translator) of the Miracles de Nostre Dame before claiming to be their escrivain (writer): from latin proses, he elaborates a collection of rhyming octosyllabic tales in romance language. What is at stake stands clear – promoting Marian devotion towards those who do not understand the letre (latin). The implementation of this ambition cannot however be restricted only to the process of vernacularization: this study aims at highlighting the crucial role played by what we call visual writing in transmitting mariological knowledge. The traits of this textual device are found through lexical, syntactical, structural, thematic and ideological clues; it is conceived as the product of the early 13th century’s precise discursive conjuncture, which pays attention to all that one can perceive through sight, all that can be shown or rendered through images, as well as the dynamic relationships between visible and invisible. Thus our work starts showing that veoir is a fundamental topic for the corpus, meaning that we analyze visual writing as a narrative principle; then do we question the connexions made through the production of religious discourse between perception and representation – our subject here turns into an apologetic principle; last, we focus on visual writing as a spiritual principle, as it is the essential means for the text to convey Nostre Dame’s presence for its reader. Moving away from the basic observation of the Miracles’s didactic aspect, our analysis advocates for their appreciation as a scholarly and definitely contemplative work. |
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| ISSN: | 2262-5534 |