A critical edition of a late fourteenth century French verse translation of Boethius' de consolatione philosophiae : boece de confort

726 Pages·1997·44.935 MB·English

by  Marcel Noest

A CRITICAL EDITION
OF A LATE FOURTEENTH CENTURY FRENCH VERSE
TRANSLATION
OF BOETHIUS’ DE CONSOLATIONE PHILOSOPHIZE:
BÖECE DE CONFORT
Thesis submitted to the Department of Romance Languages
in fulfilment of the requirements for the
Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in The University of Queensland
Submitted by Marcel Noest, Cand. Litt., Dip. Ed., M. Ed. Admin
1997
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STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY
The work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, original
except as acknowledged in the text. I hereby declare that I have not submitted this
material, either in whole or in part, for a degree at this or any other university.
To Fée, Gala and Suki,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the preparation of this work, I wish to first and foremost express my gratitude to my
supervisor, Dr. J. Keith Atkinson, for his friendship, enthusiasm, time, advice and
unfailing encouragement. I am also indebted to the staff at the Department of Romance
Languages at The University of Queensland and in particular to those who contributed
so substantially to the knowledge of Old-French and Middle-French translations of
Boethian texts: my secondary supervisor Margaret Bolton-Hall and Béatrice Atherton,
whose research was essential to my work. In addition, I gratefully acknowledge the
advice on informatics provided by my friends Danny Thomas and Karl Bergmann. The
most heartfelt thanks are due to my wife who so gracefully accepted my extra-marital
time allocations to the multitude of screens, desks and paper mountains.
A CRITICAL EDITION
OF A LATE FOURTEENTH CENTURY FRENCH VERSE
TRANSLATION
OF BOETHIUS’ DE CONSOLATIONE PHILOSOPHIÆ
BÖECE DE CONFORT
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this thesis is to present the first complete edition of the verse translation
of the De Consolatione Philosophic? of Boethius known as version X, supposedly
completed by an anonymous Benedictine monk in the late XIV^1 Century.
Volume one consists of four chapters. Volume two contains five chapters, a
bibliography and an appendix.
Volume One
♦ Chapter one serves as an introduction to the edition. The place of this version in the
French tradition of translations of the Consolatio as well as information about the
author, the title and probable date of the text are discussed.
♦ Chapter two deals with an extensive description of the manuscripts containing this
text. The selection of the base manuscript and three control manuscripts is then
discussed, and a genealogy of the manuscripts is proposed. A stemma and a table of
variants conclude this chapter.
♦ Chapter three examines the close relationship between this text and its model, the
Roman de Fortune et de Félicité, the verse translation by Renaut de Louhans. An
appendix showing a verse by verse comparison with Renaut’s text accompanies this
chapter.
♦ Chapter four presents a linguistic study of the text, including an examination of the
dialect and a table of rhymes. It is proposed that the author made a special effort to
eradicate evidence of Renaut’s Burgundian linguistic features in favour of those found
in the Picard dialect of his time.
Volume Two
♦ Chapter one states the principles adopted for the establishment of the text.
♦ Chapter two presents the edited text of the Böece de Confort and the variants from the
control manuscripts. A photographic copy of folio 43 recto from Paris, Bibliothèque
nationale, nouv. acq. fr. 1982, arguably the most interesting page from the base
manuscript, is included.
♦ Chapter three contains the notes.
♦ Chapter four presents a list of proper names.
♦ Chapter five consists of a glossary.
The bibliography contains all works, both consulted and cited.
In an attempt to make all manuscripts containing a copy of the Böece de Confort more
accessible, an appendix, providing for each manuscript the numbers of the first and
final verses of both sides of each folio on which this text is found, concludes this
thesis.
A CRITICAL EDITION OF A LATE
FOURTEENTH CENTURY FRENCH VERSE
TRANSLATION OF BOETHIUS’
DE CONSOLATIONE PHILOSOPHIÆ:
BÖECE DE CONFORT
MARCEL NOEST
VOL. 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
VOLUME I
Chapter 1. The Consolatio and the Böece De Confort 1-19
Introduction 1
The Translations 2-9
The Author 9-15
The Date 16-18
The Title 18-19
Chapter 2. The Manuscripts 20-111
Description 20-71
Classification of the Manuscripts 72-92
Stemma 93
Appendix 1: Table of Variants 94-111
Chapter 3. The Influence of Renaut’s Roman 112-149
Parallels 112-118
Omissions 118-124
Additions 124-129
Modifications 129-141
Conclusion 141-143
Appendix 2: Comparisons with Version IX 144-149
Chapter 4. Linguistic Features 150-215
Versification 150-152
Table of Rhymes 153-204
Language of the Author 205-209
Commentary 209-215
VOLUME II
Chapter 1. Establishing the Edition 1-5
Chapter 2. The Böece de Confort*, Text and Variants 6-372
Frontispiece: Folio 43 recto of ms.
Paris, Bibl. nat., nouv. acq.fr. 1982 7
Text 8-325
Variants 326-372
Chapter 3. Critical Notes 373-379
Chapter 4. List of Proper Names 380-392
Chapter 5 Glossary 393-434
Bibliography 435-445
Appendix 446-498
Appendix 3 Verse Index for all Manuscripts 446-498