Adolescence, Anxiety and Amusement in Versions of Paris Et Vienne
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes Journal of medieval and humanistic studies 20 | 2010 Idylle et récits idylliques à la fin du Moyen Âge Adolescence, anxiety and amusement in versions of Paris et Vienne Rosalind Brown-Grant Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/crm/12209 DOI: 10.4000/crm.12209 ISSN: 2273-0893 Publisher Classiques Garnier Printed version Date of publication: 30 December 2010 Number of pages: 59-70 ISSN: 2115-6360 Electronic reference Rosalind Brown-Grant, « Adolescence, anxiety and amusement in versions of Paris et Vienne », Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes [Online], 20 | 2010, Online since 30 December 2013, connection on 13 October 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/crm/12209 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ crm.12209 © Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes Adolescence, anxiety and amusement in versions of Paris et Vienne Abstract : Idyllic romances such as Paris et Vienne, which exists in three different versions, explore the tensions created by depicting young lovers in conflict with their parents on the issue of whom they want to marry. Whilst the original version, as preserved in Paris, BnF fr. 1480, uses comedy in order to present the hero and heroine as tricksters whose flouting of parental authority evokes ambivalence in the reader, the Burgundian redaction (Brussels, KBR 9632/3) reduces this emphasis on the couple’s duplicitousness by ending the tale with a lengthy retrospective validation of Paris as chivalric hero and true aristocrat. By contrast, the shorter version of Paris et Vienne, which is extant in Paris, BnF fr. 20044, largely strips the narrative of its capacity to amuse and extracts from the tale an uncompromisingly serious message about the moral dilemmas and emotional anguish undergone by young lovers intent on pursuing their personal desires. Résumé : Les romans idylliques, tels que celui de Paris et Vienne, qui existe en trois rédactions différentes, explorent les tensions créées lorsque deux jeunes amants s’opposent à la volonté de leurs familles en matière de mariage. Alors que la version originale (e.g. Paris, BnF fr. 1480) utilise l’humour afin de peindre les amants sous les traits de trompeurs, effet qui n’aurait pas manqué de susciter une certaine ambivalence chez le lecteur médiéval, la rédaction bourguignonne (Bruxelles, KBR 9632/3) essaie de modifier cette impression du couple en ajoutant à la fin du récit une longue justification rétrospective de la prouesse et de la noblesse du héros. En revanche, la version plus courte de l’histoire (Paris, BnF fr. 20044) élimine la plus grande partie de l’humour du texte original afin d’en tirer une leçon morale de portée plus sérieuse sur les angoisses subies par les amants en quête de leur propre destin affectif. Idyllic romances, tales which feature the struggle of a pair of young lovers to overcome parental opposition to their relationship 1, were highly popular with medieval audiences from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, two of the most famous early examples being Floire et Blancheflor and Aucassin et Nicolette. One late medieval idyllic romance which was widely disseminated in Europe through its various printed editions and translations is Paris et Vienne. In this tale, Paris, the eponymous hero, who is of lesser birth than Vienne, the heroine, being the son of her father’s vassal, earns the affection of his beloved first by serenading her and then by fighting incognito in a series of tournaments in her honour. However, due to the refusal of Vienne’s father, the dauphin, to allow the couple to marry, they each have to resort to an elaborate ruse in order, finally, to obtain his consent. Thus, Paris, who has been exiled from court, uses his disguise as a Saracen to help free the dauphin 1 M. Lot-Borodine, Le Roman idyllique au Moyen Âge, Paris, Picard, 1913 ; M. Vuagnoux- Uhlig, Le Couple en herbe. Galeran de Bretagne et L’Escoufle à la lumière du roman idyllique médiéval, Geneva, Droz, 2009 ; Le Récit idyllique, aux sources du roman moderne, ed. J.-J. Vincensini and C. Galderisi, Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2009. Cahiers de Recherches Médiévales, 20, 2010 60 Rosalind BROWN-GRANT from imprisonment in the Holy Land and obtains the promise of Vienne’s hand as a reward. Vienne, for her part, makes herself physically repellent to her father’s preferred suitor, the son of the duke of Burgundy, by placing rotten chicken meat under her armpits, thereby maintaining her fidelity to Paris until he returns home to marry her2. This romance first appeared in French in the first half of the fifteenth century in a version which is preserved in a group of six manuscripts. Authorial credit for this work is claimed in a prologue by one Pierre de la Cépède, of Marseille, who states that he was responsible for translating the text into French in 1432 from a Provençal version, which he asserts was itself a translation from the Catalan. Traces of the tale’s putative Provençal (though not Catalan) origin can certainly be seen in the spelling used in some of the earliest manuscripts (such as Paris, BnF fr. 1480), but this spelling was altered in later copyings in favour of more northern French forms 3. The manuscripts of this group are all very similar in content, except for one written at the Burgundian court in the mid-fifteenth century which emanated from the Lille workshop of the illuminator known as the Maître de Wavrin4. This Burgundian redaction (Brussels, KBR 9632/3), differs from all the others in this group in being sub-divided into chapters which are systematically introduced by a large red capital letter for the first word of each chapter and which are frequently accompanied by a rubric summarising the episode’s contents, as in all the romances that were produced at the Wavrin workshop at this time5. It also contains two interpolated episodes which are not found in the other manuscripts of the tale that belong to this group. The first of these offers a brief account of the sights seen by Paris on his way from Genoa to the Holy Land, whilst the second provides a lengthy description of the jousts and festivities organised to celebrate the couple’s wedding when they are finally given permission to marry6. Apart from the six manuscripts in this group, the tale of Paris and Vienne also exists in a second, shorter French version which survives in a single manuscript (Paris, BnF fr. 20044)7 and the printed editions of the tale in French which date from 1487 onwards. This shorter version, which is half the length of the longer, would seem to have been the basis of all the subsequent translations of the story, such as 2 J.-J. Vincensini, « Désordre de l’abjection et ordre de la courtoisie : le corps abject dans Paris et Vienne de Pierre de la Cépède », Medium Ævum, 68/2, 1999, p. 292-304. 3 See R. Kaltenbacher, « Der altfranzösische Roman Paris et Vienne », Romanische Forschungen, 15/2, 1904, p. 321-688. All references to this edition, hereafter referred to as K, will be made in the body of the text and quotations will amend punctuation and spelling as necessary. 4 A. Naber, « B. R. 9632/3 – Une version bourguignonne du roman de Paris et Vienne », Rencontres médiévales en Bourgogne (XIVe-XVe siècles), 1, 1991, p. 19-27. 5 A. Naber, « Les manuscrits d’un bibliophile bourguignon du XVe siècle, Jean de Wavrin », Revue du Nord, 72, 1990, p. 23-48 ; and id., « La culture livresque dans quelques romans de chevalerie bourguignons », Eulalie, 1, 1998, p. 39-44. 6 See K, p. 632-633 for the first of these interpolations, and p. 633-646 for the second. 7 See Paris et Vienne, romanzo cavalleresco del XV secolo, Parigi, Bibliothèque Nationale, ms. fr. 20044, ed. A. M. Babbi, Milan, FrancoAngeli, 1992. All references to this edition, hereafter referred to as B, will be made in the body of the text. Adolescence, anxiety and amusement in versions of Paris et Vienne 61 that of William Caxton into English (1485)8. It omits the authorial prologue, lacks the prophetic dreams that the young lovers have at key moments in the narrative and contains far fewer dialogues and descriptions of tournaments. Like the Burgundian version, it is systematically divided into chapters, each with its own succinct heading, but it also differs from all the manuscripts of the longer version in dating the events it recounts to 1271, a claim which is completely without historical foundation. Although scholars are divided as to which of the two French renderings of the story is the original – for some, the shorter, « primitive » version came first9, whereas for others, the shorter redaction is a simplified version of the earlier, longer one 10 –, the codicological tradition itself supports the second of these views since the manuscripts of the longer version are all older than that of the shorter. One reason why this slimmed-down version of Paris et Vienne was adopted in all the French printed editions of the tale and was used as the basis for the printed translations may be the general tendency of such editions of romances to abbreviate their manuscript sources11. However, there may also be another reason for this proliferation of versions and for the preference given to the shorter redaction in the print and translation traditions, one which I want to explore here. As Leah Otis-Cour has recently argued12, idyllic tales such as Paris et Vienne can be seen as « canoniquement correct[s] » in putting the Church’s championing of individual consent above that of the aristocratic practice of parents choosing marriage partners for their offspring for the purposes of maintaining dynastic status, irrespective of their child’s wishes.