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Larry S. Crist Deep Structures in the Chansons De Geste: Hypotheses for a Taxonomy 1

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Larry S. Crist Deep Structures in the Chansons De Geste: Hypotheses for a Taxonomy 1 Larry S. Crist Deep Structures in the chansons de geste: Hypotheses for a Taxonomy 1. 1. This paper is presented as a continuation of the discussion, at our last annual (Noëltide) meeting, of the paper of Kenneth C. Mealy and of Guy R. Mermier,1 a resume of which can be found in the February 1975 issue of Olifant.2 It attempts to work along lines sketched out concerning the medieval French epic by Paul Zumthor, in his already- classic Essai de poétique médiéval3 and by P. Van Nuffel: "Problèmes de sémiotique interprétative: L'Epopée."4 My debt to both of these scholars5 is massive; but neither can be called to blame for what is to follow. I begin from the hypothesis that the modern critical distinction between epic and romance (a distinction deeper than that of the physical form of the vehicle: irregular strophic form [laisses] vs. non-strophic rhymed couplets) is based on a "real" epistemological difference between, in the French middle ages, the "epic" way of expressing experience (and thus, doubtless, of experiencing) and the "romance" way. For the purposes of this initial prospection, I exclude the "lyric" mode. I 1Kenneth C. Mealy, "Huon de Bordeaux: An Examination of Gen- erative Forces in Late Epic Diction", Olifant, 2(December, 1974)2, 80-90; Guy R. Mermier, "More About Unity in the Song of Roland", Olifant 2(December, 1974)2, 91-108. 22(February, 1975)3, 161-74, esp. 166-68, 170. 3(Paris: Seuil, 1972), pp. 322-38, notably the diagram on p. 326 (reproduced by Mermier, p. 105, and referred to in Olifant, 2[February, 197513, 167). 4LR; 27(1973), 150-72. 5And, quite evidently, to the work of A. J. Greimas, especially his foundation work, Sémantique structurale [rev. ed.] (Paris: Larousse, 1974 [1966]). I use this somewhat lumpy (but not much more lumpy than the standard, "Weltanschauung") term in lieu of the more usual "vision" because of the temporally-later "ideological" connotations of this latter word; see Walter J. Ong, S.J., "World as View and World as Event", in American Anthropologist, 71 (1969), 634-47. 3 4 Olifant/Vol. 3, No. 1/October 1975 take "epic" and "romance" in the generally accepted sense, and thus exclude as well works with "chronicle" or "religious/hagiographic" subject matter. My goal here is to attempt to deal with the question of (at least one part of) the structural definition of the epic and in part, therefore, with the inner difference between "classic" (canonical) chansons de geste and later—post-thirteenth century—ones. Cast in the form of remarks shifting often between surface and deep structures, the paper has no pre- tension of offering a fully rigorous treatment. It should be seen as asking questions, posing working hypotheses, and raising further questions towards a methodological study of the chansons de geste along this partic- ular semiotic line. I also try to suggest some ways to handle the "drift"7 from poems regarded unanimously (or at least without significant dissent) as epic to such chansons de geste as the later Huon de Bordeaux (along with its pre- face and sequels), or to the even later (mid-fourteenth century) Baudouin de Sebourc; a "drift" in which the material form—assonanced or rimed laisses of diverse length—remains but in which the narrative structure is quite changed.8 One would hope to be able, further, to note (to see and to formalize) to what degree such structures do change, and in what manner (what is the process). - o - 1.2 The remarks that follow take their origin in discussions through- out the course of a seminar on the "epic genre" in the fall of 19749 and later continued on my own (as a comparison of the works I treat here with the list, below, of those looked at in the seminar will reveal). My desire was to arrive at a "naive" reading of a number of "epics," excluding any commentary but our own (and that previously read or heard and thus already incorporated into us); thus as naïve as 7Mealy's word (p. 180), taken from Sapir, and here used by me in a somewhat different—but, I hope, not outrageously so—manner. 8This drift is a phenomenon present at the very early period of French medieval literature, in the physical form of the Roman d'Alexandre, whose earliest form is one of regular stanzas (as in the hagiographical poems), but which is soon changed to the "epic-form" laisse (first decasyllabic, then dodecasyllabic: alexandrine), without any extant stage being what would generally called an epic. 9I wish here to express my thanks to the student participants: Barbara Brewka, Mary Beth Dunn, Richard Söderström, William Wadsworth. Larry S. Crist/Deep Structures 5 possible. Operating from relative ignorance was expressly desired. This also saved time for more primary reading. It was presumed that everyone had a relatively good acquaintance (through direct reading, it goes without saying) with the "canonical" epics: the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid and, since we were all in French, the Roland. Other works discussed and read, if not by all, at least by the presenter, were: Gilgamesh Huon de Bordeaux Mahabharata (Narasimhan's Cid abridgement) Táin Bo Cuailgne Chanson de Guillaume Beowulf Raoul de Cambrai Voltaire, La Henriade Niebelungenlied Chateaubriand, Les Natchez, Les Nial's Saga Martyrs, and parts of the Mé- Song of Igor's Campaign moires d'outre-tombe Ronsard, La Franciade Zola, Germinal D'Aubigné, Les Tragiques Malraux, L'Espoir I had no pretension of unifying this list, except that everything on it had been called, at some moment, an epic; nor did we come anywhere near making the unification. But we were struck by one frequently occur- ring "motif," which can be called that of the prise de conscience ("be- coming aware"/"having one's consciousness rise") of an actor, usually the actor-"hero," which moves that actor and with him his set of actors (class/community/society) toward victory in a struggle: thus Achilles is shocked out of his inactivity by the death of Patroclus and moves into decisive action; thus Aeneas will obey the divine summons, will leave Dido and proceed on his pious duty to found Rome. Henry of Navarre will, we know, change his religion for that of his ancestor St. Louis:10 be this a religious or a political decision, it involves a prise de conscience and has definite political effects (effects in the polis/society). This prise de conscience may in itself be neither necessary nor sufficient to make of a given text an epic (this latter being, we recog- nize, a hypostasis), but it is a phenomenon interesting and ultimately helpful to pursue. We adopted another working hypothesis, one coming likewise from the observation, on the level of surface structures, that epic usually in- cludes wars or, at least, some sort of battles, that is canonical societal 10Outside the récit, but part of its real historical/geschichtlich context, this plays thereby a part in the work itself. That is, Henry is characterized as in fact a real historical personage; the history outside the récit, being presented by the discours as real, serves to define Henry. 6 Olifant/Vol. 3, No. 1/October 1975 conflicts. The epic world is very binary; it is one in which oppositions are great and exclusive: one is A or X; there are no tenable non-A or non-X categories.11 Our hypothesis posed that epic deals with insertion of persons (actors) in societal conflicts, not with personal conflicts with society (this latter being part of the structural characterization of romance): epic romance /actor + society vs. (actor +) society/ vs. /actor vs. (actor +) society/ Thus both Achilles and Aeneas, who were functioning more or less as non- Greek~Roman as well as non-Trojan~Carthaginian, return to their proper categories (presented as ideologically correct by the discours) and the story can progress—the story of the Greeks and their vanquishing of Troy (victory by destruction) and of the Trojans and their founding of Rome (victory by construction), and not merely of Achilles or of Aeneas--who are thereby seen to be metonymous, as noted in the formula above, with their "countries" (societies). And thus Henry of Navarre cannot shift to a non-Protestant/non-catholic position and get off the hook:12 he must move to the opposite category, i.e., from /Protestant/ to /Catholic/. One may quite plausibly suspect that the "meaning" of these two words/cat- 11This seems to be one of the things Karl Uitti is getting at in his book, Story, Myth, and Celebration in Old French Narrative Poetry, 1050-1200 (Princeton, 1973), in his discussion of the Roland in partic- ular, a point then picked up again in the appendix on Jean Bodel's Saisnes, and one whose pertinence as 1 see it here escaped me in my re- view in Olifant, 1(February, 1972)2, notably pp. 27-28. This phenom- enon of binarism is present in a starkly dialectic form in a set of base texts for the middle ages, viz., the New Testament, more precisely the Gospels (specifically the synoptics): "[Q]ui enim non est adversum vos, pro vobis est" (Luke 9:50 [= Mark 9:39]) vs. "Qui non est mecum contra me est . ." (Luke 11:23 [= Matthew 12:30]). The structure is: Lk(+ vs. -) Mk(+) vs. Matt(-) in which Luke incorporates both poles and thereby neutralizes the dis- junction. 12As one might suspect, were one to fall into the intentional fallacy, Voltaire, to judge by his expressed ideology (in his more clearly didactic works), might have "preferred." Larry S.
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