Romanic ReviewPub Date : 2022-05-01DOI: 10.1215/00358118-9560716
Julie Singer
{"title":"Chronicle Conditions","authors":"Julie Singer","doi":"10.1215/00358118-9560716","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00358118-9560716","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Sociological research on chronic illness, and especially on the autobiographical writings of modern patients, has yielded insights into how chronic conditions alter fundamental relationships between notions of self, body, and time. The chronic part of “chronic illness” can disrupt perceptions of the linearity of time, yielding alternate temporalities grounded in bodily experience. In contemporary self-fiction, to chronicle a chronic condition is to juggle different kinds of time. But what about genres, like premodern historiography, that impose a linear, chronological framework? What is at stake when the narrative temporality of a medieval chronicle is filtered through the disrupted temporalities of a chronically impaired subject? This article interrogates these questions through the works of Gilles li Muisis (1272–1353). A Tournaisian abbot, Gilles authored both a Latin chronicle and of a set of vernacular poems situating his writerly activity within a very specific corporeal context: he writes both poetry and chronicle after cataracts have so impaired his vision that he can no longer carry out his administrative duties at the abbey of Saint-Martin—and, remarkably, he abandons his writing after a successful surgery restores his eyesight. The ways in which Gilles talks about his own bodily condition, in both the chronicle and the poems, constitute an elaborate metadiscursive frame whose ultimate effect is to construct the project of the chronicler as a kind of self-writing avant la lettre. With readings of both the Latin and the vernacular works, this essay shows that the chronicle is achieved through a series of subtle chronological and sensory displacements: Gilles’s chronic condition has enabled him to create an anachronic subject-position, outside of both linear historiographical time and the “body-time” of his impairment.","PeriodicalId":39614,"journal":{"name":"Romanic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91054749","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Romanic ReviewPub Date : 2022-05-01DOI: 10.1215/00358118-9560700
Matteo Pace
{"title":"“Come vertute in petra prezïosa”","authors":"Matteo Pace","doi":"10.1215/00358118-9560700","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00358118-9560700","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Although in the last few decades scholars have dedicated much attention to the juridical world and the academic environment of Bologna and its flourishing university in the second half of the thirteenth century, totally uncharted territory are the connections between Guido Guinizzelli di Magnano (1230s–1276), judge, prosecutor, and one of the main literary references of the upcoming Dolce Stilnovo, and the professional activity of Taddeo Alderotti (1206/1215–1295), the catalyst of the new scientific trends of the Bolognese medical school. Guido Guinizzelli’s canzone “Al cor gentil” offers a groundbreaking theory of nobility that philosophically conflates love with nobility. This article argues that the philosophical progress of the canzone presents an understanding of medical and scientific terminology that must be put in contact with Taddeo and his interest in Avicenna’s medical philosophy. Guinizzelli’s correspondence between love and nobility is nurtured by Avicenna’s increasingly popular doctrine of forma specifica, which structures the reasoning and the examples of the vernacular poem. Guinizzelli therefore frames the idea of nobility in the heart of the lover as the forma specifica of the noble man, and conceives the lady as the divine intelligence that reduces to act his potentiality.","PeriodicalId":39614,"journal":{"name":"Romanic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75379613","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Romanic ReviewPub Date : 2022-05-01DOI: 10.1215/00358118-9560684
C. Winn
{"title":"Béroalde de Verville, médecin conteur, et la seconde vie de la Querelle de l’Abstinente (1612)","authors":"C. Winn","doi":"10.1215/00358118-9560684","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00358118-9560684","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 La Querelle de l’abstinente, suite à la parution, en 1566, puis en 1597, du Huitiesme Paradoxe de Laurent Joubert, opposa dans un premier temps le médecin orléanais, Israël Harvet, au médecin poitevin, François Citoys, autour de la question de savoir combien de temps un être humain peut rester en vie sans boire ni manger. Le médecin tourangeau, Béroalde de Verville, s’était d’abord rangé du côté d’Harvet qui réfutait les arguments de Citoys en faveur de la thèse avancée par Joubert. En 1612, alors que la Querelle de l’Abstinente a pratiquement sombré dans l’oubli, le conteur Béroalde de Verville lui redonne une seconde vie. Dans Le Palais des Curieux (Object XVIII), il consacre à la question des abstinences extraordinaires trois brefs récits intitulés « D’une fille qui vivait sans manger », « De l’Epimenidium » et « D’un homme fort sobre ». Nous nous proposons de relire ces textes en nous interrogeant sur 1) les motivations qui ont pu conduire Béroalde de Verville à relancer un débat depuis longtemps classé ; 2) les choix auctoriaux – celui de traiter d’une question médicale sous la forme d’historiettes et celui d’insérer celles-ci dans un recueil de curiosités assemblé « pour le plaisir des Doctes et le bien de ceux qui desirent toujours savoir » ; et 3) la nouvelle dimension que prend alors l’ancienne querelle d’école.","PeriodicalId":39614,"journal":{"name":"Romanic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78868082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Romanic ReviewPub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.1215/00358118-9377350
Lewis C. Seifert
{"title":"“Vivre avec les vivants”","authors":"Lewis C. Seifert","doi":"10.1215/00358118-9377350","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00358118-9377350","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Starting from the premise that the study of quarrels—and especially those involving women—has much to gain by considering conflicts that do not involve an appeal to a public, this essay focuses on the case of Madeleine de Souvré, marquise de Sablé (1599–1678), who articulated a theory of conflict in her “Maximes” and was involved with several high-profile controversies through her friendships with François de La Rochefoucauld and the nuns of Port-Royal de Paris. In her theory and practice of conflict, Sablé develops an art of ambiguity that strives for both individual agency and interpersonal harmony. Throughout her maxims, she lays out explicit strategies for managing conflicts but is caught between an emphasis on gaining an advantage over one’s adversaries and, at the other extreme, finding a middle ground with them. But conflicts from her life suggest a different art of ambiguity: through her involvement with the first readers of La Rochefoucauld’s Maximes and her relations with the nuns of Port-Royal, Sablé aims to preserve her own viewpoint and her friendships at the same time. These ambiguities lead to the hypothesis that she faced gendered limits that pushed her to search for ways of making her opinions more palatable and, ultimately, of allowing them to coexist with diverging opinions.","PeriodicalId":39614,"journal":{"name":"Romanic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79854745","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Romanic ReviewPub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.1215/00358118-9377342
Derval Conroy
{"title":"Marie de Gournay’s “Advis à quelques gens d’Église” and the Early Modern Rigorist Debate","authors":"Derval Conroy","doi":"10.1215/00358118-9377342","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00358118-9377342","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article examines one of Marie de Gournay’s forays into religious controversy in her short text “Advis à quelques gens d’Église.” First published in L’Ombre de la damoiselle de Gournay (1626), the text is an indictment of the abuse of the sacrament of confession by both penitents and confessors, and points to a rigorist stance on the part of the author nearly twenty years before it became the dominant position of the church once again. Tackling a range of thorny questions such as the aim of confession, deferred absolution, and the nature of sin, Gournay examines confession as a societal institution, outlining how it fails utterly to reduce the daily experience of petty injustices and wrongdoing. Placing that failure squarely at the feet of the clergy, Gournay includes advice for the confessors, making of the text a secular “manuel des confesseurs”—an extraordinary undertaking for a laywoman at the time.","PeriodicalId":39614,"journal":{"name":"Romanic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79582629","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Romanic ReviewPub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.1215/00358118-9377334
Clément Scotto di Clemente
{"title":"Les Femmes dans la querelle de la moralité du théâtre","authors":"Clément Scotto di Clemente","doi":"10.1215/00358118-9377334","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00358118-9377334","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Au sein des polémiques théâtrales du XVIIe siècle, le traité de Mademoiselle de Beaulieu tient lieu de modèle et d’exception. En fondant son argumentation sur un détournement des topiques théâtrophobes, qui promeut une réforme esthétique et économique de la scène, son texte est emblématique des stratégies apologétiques au sein des querelles sur le théâtre. Il se singularise cependant par l’éloge fait à Isabella Andreini, qui relève autant de la provocation sur le comédien idolâtre que de la promotion d’une actrice politique. La querelle du théâtre ainsi engagée croise les enjeux esthétiques, politiques et religieux, dans un contexte de guerre des religions et de changement de pouvoir. Mlle de Beaulieu en use pour servir trois femmes et trois causes : elle-même et la place des femmes dans le champ des lettres ; Andreini et l’art théâtral italien ; Marie de Médicis, son mécénat et sa politique.","PeriodicalId":39614,"journal":{"name":"Romanic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74309592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Romanic ReviewPub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.1215/00358118-9377382
C. Seth
{"title":"A Woman’s Words","authors":"C. Seth","doi":"10.1215/00358118-9377382","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00358118-9377382","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Right at the end of the eighteenth century, a famous poet, Ponce-Denis Écouchard Le Brun, denounced women writers and a literary dispute ensued. While it mobilized a number of authors, one poem stands out in accounts of the quarrel: Constance Pipelet’s “Épître aux femmes.” A study of the timeline shows that this was not in fact part of the original exchanges and that its central role is due on the one hand to a retrospective delineation of the events by a woman poet with a vested interest and, on the other, to its ambition and quality. The case poses several questions around authorial identity, gender-based judgments, the role of periodicals, and the literary construction of quarrels both as they occur and after they are over.","PeriodicalId":39614,"journal":{"name":"Romanic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79877092","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Romanic ReviewPub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.1215/00358118-9377358
Helena Taylor
{"title":"Antoinette Deshoulières’s Cat","authors":"Helena Taylor","doi":"10.1215/00358118-9377358","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00358118-9377358","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article examines the poet Antoinette Deshoulières’s (1638–94) interventions in a number of querelles. It focuses on a series of poems that appeared in 1678–79, early in her career, and written as if from her pet cat. Often dismissed for their frivolity, these poems instead reveal Deshoulières’s engagement with the Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns and the debates about the animal machine. While such interventions constituted an important strategy for making a name for herself, they are characterized by elusiveness. Although that elusiveness has been read as a gendered strategy of modesty, this article shows instead that her equivocal and even parodic, burlesque way of intervening in the two quarrels is consistent with her skepticism and presents readers with a hermeneutical challenge that disrupts the rhetorical logic of a quarrel. Deshoulières’s interventions invite us to reflect on the roles of gender, genre, and interpretation in early modern quarrels and their study.","PeriodicalId":39614,"journal":{"name":"Romanic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74260136","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}