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Verse to prose: a literary fashion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

R. G. C. Holdaway
R. G. C. Holdaway*
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
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Extract

This article attempts to consider various aspects of the change from verse to prose romances and various linguistic problems related to the rendering of verse into prose.

In France towards the end of the Middle Ages, especially during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, prose became the pre-eminent medium for works of narrative fiction, and many of the verse narratives of the previous centuries were rewritten to conform to this change in taste and form. Georges Doutrepont lists some 55 epic poems and some 18 adventure romances that were revised in this manner, and it would be unwise to regard his catalogue as complete. Although Doutrepont analyzes a few of these “mises-en-prose,” his analyses are largely concerned with the appearance of the manuscripts, their dates, and the over-all expansion or condensation of the narratives.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , Fall 1964 , pp. 47 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1964

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References

1 Les Mises en prose des épopées et des romans chevaleresques du XIVe au XVIe siècle. Brussels: Palais des Académies, 1939, in-8°. (Mémoires de l’Académie Royale de Belgique, Classe des Lettres, XL), pp. 5–9. Line numbers in both footnotes and text refer to the Williams edition of the verse text. Folio numbers refer to M.B.N.f.fr.1493.

2 Bursill-Hall, G. L., “Levels Analysis: J. R. Firth’s Theories of Linguistic Analysis,” JCLA. 6:2 (1960), pp. 124–35, 6:3 (1961), pp. 164–91 Google Scholar.

3 Lejeune, Rita, “Rôle Littéraire de la famille d’Aliénor d’Aquitaine,” Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale, Xe-XIIe siècle. Poitiers: Université de Poitiers, 1958 (Centre d’Etudes Supérieures de Civilisation Médiévale), I, 319–37 Google Scholar.

4 New York Public Library, Ill. Ms. No. 122.

5 Floriant, et Florete, , A Metrical Romance of the Fourteenth Century edited from a unique manuscript at Newbattle Abbey by Francisque Michel. Edinburgh: Roxburghe Club, 1873 Google Scholar, in-4°.

6 Floriant, et Florete, , edited by Williams, Harry F.. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1947, in-8°., University of Michigan Publications, Language and Literature, XXIII Google Scholar.

7 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français 1492 and 1493. I am at present preparing a critical edition of this text.

8 Doutrepont, Les Mises en prose, p. 334.

9 Morawski, Joseph, ed., Proverbes français antérieurs au XVe siècle. Paris: Champion, 1923 in-8°., Les Classiques Français du Moyen Age, XXXIII Google Scholar.

10 Morawski, No. 1594.

11 Evans, Joan, Dress in Medieval France. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952 Google Scholar, in-8°.

12 Pickford, C. E., ed., Alixandre L’Orphelin, a prose tale of the fifteenth century. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1951 Google Scholar, in-8°., in French Classics, Extra Series.

13 Rasmussen, J., La prose narrative française du XVe siècle, étude esthétique et stylistique. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1958, in-8°., Ch. IV: 5 Formules et clichés, pp. 84–93 Google Scholar.

14 Lejeune, “Rôle Littéraire.”

15 Floriant de Sicile, the alternative name of the romance, occurs in a book-seller’s list: see Catalogue d’un marchand libraire du XVe siècle, tenant boutique à Tours, publié par le docteur Achille Chereau, avec notes explicatives. Paris: Académie de Bibliophiles, 1868, in-8°. B. N. Imprimés 8°. Q. 3275, Q. 4909.