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ED 037 119 FL 001 576

AUTHOR Kelly, Douglas TITLE A for Undergraduate Old French. PUB DATE [65] NOTE 6p.; Paper presented at the 80th AnnualMeeting of the Modern Association of America,Chicago, Illinois, December 27-29, 1965

EDRS PRICE EDRS Price MF-$0.25 HC Not Available from EDRS. DESCRIPTORS Course Descriptions, Curriculum Design,Curriculum Development, Diachronic Linguistics, Educational Problems, *French, French Literature, *Grammar, *Language Instruction, Literary History,Literature Appreciation, Medieval History, *, , Poetry, , Romance , Textbook Selection, *UndergraduateStudy

.. ABSTRACT Seeking to determine the necessary elements of a grammar for undergraduatestudents with a strong interest in Old French, the author discusses:(1) sounds,(2) forms,(3) syntax, and (4) poetics. It is felt that the treatmentaccorded phonology should be different from the traditional approachused in graduate level , since the courseis to be oriented primarily toward the reading of introductory literature.Specific texts are mentioned, and a general coursedescription is provided. (RL) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION Si WELFARE

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POSITION OR POLICY. Cr A OBA111411 FOR UNDENBADUATE OID MOH ire In order to teach Old French to undergraduates it will be necessary to decide on what sort of grammarto uimai: Ind by Maur I mean a test giving a clear and adequateintroduction to Obi French sounds, formes and syntax for beginning students to use in eaquiring an elemeiltaryareading knowledge of thelanguage: It would, in shorts be a handbook, Since this paper does not pretend to be scything more than a statement of what I Wilk such a greaser should be likes I should like to begin by making a fen; general assumptions regarding the type of students and material I thins such a course would require. These assumptions wills I hopes provide a context within which I can propose a grammar that is suitable for beginningstudents and tbat can be used with tho material gonerall7 available for instruction. To begin with then, I believe one must assume that only outstanding advanced undergraduates will be admitted into a course in OldFrench. These students should possess a good undergraduate pram paratior in and literature,. this means they should have had at least three years of college French; Furthermore theywould presumably be planning to continue Old French in graduate schools either as candidates for advanced degrees in Old French or Bounce languages, or in areas of Engliahs cooperative. literatures or history where several years of work in Old French is necessary for their specialty. I do not believe this is assuming too much regarding the plans or preparation of good seniors; Seconds I assume that the grammar will not be a ample* or even advanced text N there are enoughof these anyway in Prima, English, and Germ M alos but rather an elementary handbook to guide and help the beginning student of Old French as he tries to master the rudiments of the language and to acquire some fluency in reading; By way of comparisons it would not be dissimilar im form to Baynaud. de Legate Introduction Pt l'ancien aiaexcept that the treat' sent of syntax should perhaps be more ive than in his test; Thirds one must take for granted Mist a number of 014 French works are available in editions suitable for beginning students-. Finall7s I assume that the proposed undergraduate course will emphasize Old French literature rather than philology, in the narrow sense of the word; and by this I mean that theobject of the course will be to teach the students to read and appreciatecertain outstanding works of Old French literatures rather than to use those works primarily to allot, the evolution of the language from to Old or Modern French* Since on this point is important in determining the scope of any grammar prepared for undergraduate Old French, and since ow limitation of the breadth of the course a seen to some ill-edviseds I shall take a little time to justify yrdeclaim; :1; The interest undergraduates may have in learning Old French Is, I believes mainly literary; in facts undergraduates, not to speak of graduates, are often repulsed by the need to learn the development of a language that they can scarcely read; Beginners simply find it more interesting to ponders for exempla, the place of the Ba ligant episode in the or the conflict between love and knighthood in than to aer4the rise and evolution of inchoative in and Old French; I do not mean that the rise and develop- ment of inchoative verbs is not interesting; only that it is more interesting and more meaningful to a student 'when he already knows. CU4French and can easily recognize the verbs that stem nowt Latin inchoatives; This would apply as well to other aspects of the dews* lopeent of Old French: Later, ofcourses the student would undertake a more intensive and thorough study of the development of the language in a separate and more advanced graduate course: The wishes of studentscan not of course be a deciding !Bator in determining how a is to be taught, and there are indeed more cogent reasons for setting up a beginning course in Old French along the lines I have described; But I think it is not wrong to sal attention to the desires of the students (as Isee them, of course) as long as other considerations seem to show that a beginning *ours* should in foot answer their wishes; For I see no reason why studentscan not learn to read the Ro or Chrttients !vain or the Jeu dtAdam without a Icnewledge of ISIrvolution of Old from Vulgar anymore than it is not impossible for them to read Mo.liares Voltaire, or Valotry without a knowledge of the development of Modern French: A knowledge of Modern French philology would of course improve their understanding of modern authors- on an advanced level. But we are hear speaking about to read Old French, that is about a level where it is very t for students to go into the finesses of a languages parti maarlY a language as illusive as Old French or any other medieval language can often be; The order I have described whereby a student learns to read Old French before he takes up the evolution of the language is not unusual. I believe it is customary in teaching to begin by making the students acquire a reading knowledge of the language by reading some important authors usually Chaucer; Amore thorough study of the development of Middle English from follows this preparation on an advanced level. I believea similar pattern is followed in teaching Middle High German and Old German: For Old French we have Latin in place of Old English and aLd German; and we assume that the students know or can be made in a short tiro to learn it well enough to be able to undertake a meaningful study of the development of Old French from Classical or Vulgar Latin: Unfortunately most students know or remember aboutas much Latin as English students know Old English; and their ignorancecan not be corrected by ones twos or three weeks of "review's; It is330 wonder that discouragement and delay are the result of beginningone Am«. known language with a study of its development from a second unknown language. I think reversing The order so that students loam first to read Old French and then how Old Frenchdeveloped from Latin would considerably improve the situation; Forstudents who begin the study of the evolution of French would bemore qualified to understand and appreciate its develop nent if theyalready had a reading knowledgeof both Old French and Modern French;Ctle does not expect beginning lanm guage students to learn The history of the languageat the same time they do first and secondyear French, It is general practice to give courses in the history of a language to advancedstudents whoballet already had two or threeyears of the ismeilsgu; 'rho nave should be true, mutatis mutandis in teachingOld French, 'Trio obviousfrom the preceding discussion that we needs a grammar giving not the evolution of sounds and forma, but rathera description of Old Frenchas it existed from about the twelfth to the fifteenth century; With this in mind, Ishall now go on to consider the treatment of sounds, forms, andsyntax in such a grfeemar; Old will not be treatede3ctensive33 in the type of course I have described, It shouldtherefore be enough to present in the grammar the Old French :minds, withperhaps a brief historical introduction emphasizing the importantchanges from the Roland, to Villon and outstanding dialectical differencesthat might OlErwise cause difficulty in reading textsfrom different regions of . Such an introduction would not be unlikethe introduction to standard Latin and Greek grammars intended for classroomreference. The section on will requiremore extensive and thorough treatment because a knowledga of forma.is essential for correct reading; The student will have to know the principtdeclen sions of Old French as they existed about 1100, and will need tohave an explanation of the process of simplification due to analogy,- lem welling, changes in pronunciation, especially thesilencing of 1*" portant consonants like pi perhaps for orientationa brief historical introduction could clari.the over-all development of forme brow Latin to Old French, by which the student could betterorient hism self in approaching the Old French forms. Buteven if there is such an introduction, emphasis should be placed on what will facilitate reading the texts. The student must be able to diatingtdsha maims native singular fran an accusative plural in order tounderstand what he is reading, not in order to learn how the languageevolved. The discussion should therefore emphasize difficulties thatmay arise in reading Old French if the fortisare not understood; This of course applies not only to , , and ,but also to conjugation; In the presentation of the latter, thestrong perfecto and irregular verbs that develop by vocalic alternationas well as the levelling of irregular forms should be stressed; Syntax will also need extensive treatment; Itwould prom bably be best to present the syntax in conjunction with thefon% as Raynatri de Loge does in his Introduction for French students, since Old French syntax and the changesETCW place in it between the twelfth and fifteenth centuriesare dependent to a considerable den gree on morphological changes during that time; Thus the instructor could rm. ....waxy from forms to syntax,and the differences between Old French and Modern French syntaxcould beseen to stem directly from the differences in tonne. Thisisclamming,of courses as I do at the beginning of thispaper, that the students havea satisfactogr knowledge of Modern Frenchgrasser; thus the grammattcal handbook can confine itself mainly to the differenceswith only enough of common traits of au and Modern French to the clarity in the presentation; maintain continuity and The divisions I havesuggested for an elementarygrammar are rather obvious, given the limitationsthat I have amusedfrom the beginning of This paper;The difficultycomes in choosing what. is to be inclnieds and thenarranging it coherently inthe text; I can not go very extensively into thisproblem here, as it is too complicated and would requirein effect a carefulinspection of the available texts, and perhapsa few years of classroomexperimentaticn with mimeographed formsbefore a final text couldbe put together. It is possible* however,to make a few suggestionshere as to the format and presentation ofthe different sectionsof the granger. Old French is neitherClassical Latinnor Modern French; the lan- guage Can be quite irregular, andstandards often variedconsider& the differences fromone period to another,one one genre to another can bevery great. What texts will decideusage? iihat texts will decide what formsare "correct" or, at least, most mon? To be comprehensives the C0140 grammar would seemingly have to be . longer and less elementarythan was stipulated at the this paper. beginning of I think that thisproblem solves itself. Thereare not many editions of important Cad Frenchworks available thatare suitable for e].ementaiyreading, and thatcan be found in texts that beginners can use; All editionspresented in languages otherthan English and French mustbe rejected. Furthermore,almost all the editions in the Sociht6 desancients texts francais and theClay gigues frais Mrs-macniltsuppose raPs-riMrs wlso are more advanced than be rs; ifiey are ctical editions, not textbooks.Other texts, such as-appear in the Textes litt6rairesfrancais am I et thinking in particular ofThomas' fristan and tfhristaiscrePerceval would probably be toodifficult for eirrim.inningatudentes however worth while they might be forreading. Thereare however a few standard texts, suchas Jenkins' Roland or the Blackwellseries with Marie de France, for example,or pahaps even the Saint Alexia.The series to be edited by Mr.Nichols will provide enoWimepresentativeworks to builda decent elementarygreaser around; it will include the Roland, Yvain the firstpart of the Roman de laage, three twelfth and Uri encentury plays, Villon't76anrirstament,and some representativepoems of the fourteenth egiaTifteenthcenturies; With these editionsas examples, plus a few otherstandard beginning texts that might enjoygeneral. approval (Evert'sMarie de France, Rogues' Aucassin etNicolette, Cluzel'a edition of courtly lyric from theSWEE TO. thebeginning of the thirteenthcenturies), it should be possible toprepare a briefs yet satisfactoryOld French grainer for an undergraduatecourse. N

Hart shouldone integrate the grammaticalinstruction with the. texte I believe itwould. be best todevise a system ofcross refe- rence", and prepare a set ofexercises basedon the texts (and grouped by text., sinceone can not suppose that allthe texts will in any one class);Several =Naples be used text to illustrate couled be citeddirectly from the particular forms andusage; in addition,a. number of line references tothe texts. couldbe added. incase The instructor or student needs additionalmaterial or illustratica.In the exer- cises the studentcould be required touse the handbookas a guide to explain variouspassages in the texts. These omitted from the passages would be illustrative examples,and Thus thestudent °mould have to showan understanding of thegrammar in order to solve cular problems ofreading and interpretation partd.- way, all the instruction in the text; In this would be baseddirectly on writtenOld French, and wouldprovide the studentwith the general and active practicehe needs in order information not believe, to be able to readwell. (I do however, that exercisesrequiring translationfrom English into OldFrench would be of drill; the student much use, exceptas repetitive needs to developan ability to identifyforms and to understandOld French constructionrather than to adapt self to an artificialstandard of expression.) hissuo I have covered. Themain parte of thetraditional .grsomsar; I should like tocanment brieflybefore concludingon one addition that I should liketo see in suchan Cad French grammar, as a supplement or additional or at least volume; Since theundergraduatecourse will emphasise readingknowledge and appreciation,and since there is a growing interestin literary studies lieve that of Old French works,I be- we need: an introduction toOld French poetics;A section on prosody is common in Latinand Greekgrammars, and the instruction is just as importantfor Old Frenchliterature. I would following plan for thesection on poetics. propose the general outline of There would firstbe a medieval theories ofcompositions the choiceof median the source- and its arrangement. Tho rulesof natural aaTZ Llligificialorder could be explainedin conjunction withthe discussion of arrangement(!vain forexample illustrates order very well),as well anS means of artificial ticn, since the amplification and abbrevia- expansion or abbreviationof part of a workdepends to a large extentan the author's originalplan; both amplification and abbreviationplay an importantrole in the compositionof courtly monologues inverse nuance and in the ; Ilse elaboration of the courtly use of commonplaces couldbe introduced inconnection alirms'amplifioaticastogether witha sampling of themore coma tozi of Old Frenchliterature thatare found in the student texts the commonplacesof courtly love). Thedifferent genres. and forms, particularlythose of courtly be complete and lyrics, wouldcase next; To cover all the texts proposedfor the beginningC011190, there would haveto be an explanationof the methods oforal or thematic ccepositionused in the chansonsde gee rte; In additionthe come means of embellishmenttauglit in mecii&FaViranuar,, and puetics must be exOntnodand illullircacd; thisincludes the vit,torJrn1 10 vices andtheirrelntion tothe different typesof styles, as thesewere understood in the Middle Ages.(grand, middle, and low; difficultand simple). It wouldnot benecessary to describe and illustrate all therhetorical figures andtrope", but onlythose applicable to Old Frenchand common in the I know of no student texts used for thecourse. texts covering allthese subjects, exceptcne or two in German, and thelack must be feltacutely byanyone who at- terapts a study of thestyle of Old Frenchliterature.... Finally,there should also be an introductionto Old Frenchversification, illus- trating theways in which varieties ofeffect are produced formal courtly lyric,as well as in such in very syllabic couplet average lines as the octo- nines plates, Allthe instruction wouldbe based. on illustrations and irercieestaken from thereading material, in the grammarproper. Poetics is a difficult as subject to master; and often tedious but, likegrammar, it is essential toan appre- ciation of a literatureas formal as that in Old be. French is wont to I have describedin this paper thetype of lieve would be mostsuitable for grammar I be- French; and I think I an undergraduatecourse in Old have proposedno revolutionary changes.,except, perhaps, in relegatingphonology to a secondary accustomed to position it is not occupying. Thereare the main divisions ofstandard student grammars:sounds, forms, andsyntax, ands in additionsa section on poetics; Theemphasis on differenttopics would be deters mined to a largeextent by the standard illustrative material beginning texts, andthe It is hoped that and exercises- wouldcane largely from them; such a grammar,combining language andpoetics, would be helpfulin preparinga relatively large number who would be able of students to begin seriouswork in Old Frenchlanguage and literature in theirfirst year of graduateschool; Douglas Kelly, Universityof Wisconsin