Mervelous Signals: Poetics and Sign Theory in the Middle Ages

388 Pages·1986·15.944 MB·English

by  Eugene Vance

'Vance has a secure reputation as one of the lead­
ing medievalists in North America whose work
consistently demonstrates the integration of con­
temporary literary theory with medieval literature.
In so doing, he helps to redefine the study of the
Middle Ages to bring the discipline into line with
humanistic literary studies."—Stephen G.
Nichols, Dartmouth College.
'This work should prove influential. It sets a new
and demanding standard for medieval scho­
larship. And the individual chapters are gems in
their own right."—Wlad Godzich, Université de
Montréal.
The investigation of language, of how (and what
and why) signifiers signify, is prominent in mod­
ern critical work, but the questions being asked are
by no means new. In Mervelous Signals, Eugene
Vance asserts that "there is scarcely a term, prac­
tice, or concept in contemporary theory that does
not have some rich antecedent in medieval
thought." He goes on to illustrate the complexity
and depth of medieval speculations about lan­
guage and literature.
Vance's study of the link between the poetics and
semiotics of the Middle Ages takes both a critical
and a historical view as he brings today's insights
to bear on the contemporary perspectives of the
works he examines in this "open-ended chronicle
of discovery." The first chapters analyze St. Au­
gustine's approach to autobiography in the Confes­
sions and the Augustinian concept of verbal utter­
ance as a temporal process. Subsequent chapters
consider the influence of the "poetics of memory"
on the text of the Chanson de Roland, and of the
"new mercantilism" on courtly romance (in Chré-
tien's Yvain). Vance explores the "latent" story of
trouvère lyric, the metaphysical uses and failures of
dialogue in medieval French theater, the man­
ifestation of class consciousness in Aucassin and
Nicolette, Dante's parallel between rhetorical and
sexual perversion, and Chaucer's between erotic
and civic betrayal and collapse. Finally, he sees in
Spenser's Faerie Queene a humanist expression of
the "relationship between poetic language, trans­
lation, and the process of history."
Mervelous Signals
Regents Studies
in Medieval Culture
General Editor
Eugene Vance
Emory University
Editorial Board
R. Howard Bloch
University
of California,
Berkeley
John E. Boswell
Yale University
Norman Kretzmann
Cornell University
Brian Stock
Pontifical Institute
for Mediaeval
Studies, Toronto
EUGENE VANCE
JMfcervelous
^ignals
Poetics and Sign Theory
in the Middle Ages
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS
LINCOLN AND LONDON
Acknowledgments for the
use of copyrighted material
appear on page xviii.
Copyright 1986 by the
University of Nebraska Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United
States of America
The paper in this book meets
the guidelines for
permanence and durability
of the Committee on
Production Guidelines for
Book Longevity of the
Council on Library Resources.
Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vance, Eugene, 1934-
Mervelous signals.
(Regents studies in medieval
culture) Includes index.
1. Poetry, Medieval -
History and criticism -
Addresses, essays, lectures.
2. Poetics -History -
Addresses, essays, lectures.
3. Semiotics - History -
Addresses, essays, lectures.
I. Title. II. Series.
PN688.V36 1986
8o9.i'o2 85-21013
isbn 0-8032-4655-2
(alkaline paper)
To my mother,
a fine reader of poems

CONTENTS
Preface
ix
CHAPTER I
Augustine's Confessions
and the
Poetics of the Law
i
CHAPTER 2
Saint Augustine: _
Language as Temporality
34
CHAPTER 3
Roland and Charlemagne:
The Remembering
Voices and the Crypt
5i
CHAPTER 4
The Châtelain de Coucy:
Enunciation and
Story in Trouvère Lyric
86
CHAPTER 5
Chrétien's Yvain and
the Ideologies
of Change and Exchange
hi
chapter 6
Aucassin et Nicolette
and the
Poetics of Discourse
152
Contents
chapter 7
The Apple as Feather:
Toward a Poetics
of Dialogue in Early
French
Medieval Theater
184
CHAPTER 8
The Differing Seed:
Dante's
Brunetto Latini
230
chapter 9
Mervelous Signals:
Sign Theory
and the Politics
of Metaphor
in Chaucer's Troilus
and Criseyde
256
chapter 10
Edmund Spenser,
Troy, and
the Humanist Ideology
of Translation
311
Index
353