Remapping the Story: Franco-Italian Epic and Lombardia as a Narrative Community (1250-1441) [thesis]

329 Pages·2011·8.814 MB·English

by  Stephen Patrick McCormick

REMAPPING THE STORY: FRANCO-ITALIAN EPIC AND LOMBARDIA AS A
NARRATIVE COMMUNITY (1250-1441)
by
STEPHEN PATRICK MCCORMICK
A DISSERTATION
Presented to the Department of Romance Languages
and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
June 2011
UMI Number: 3481241
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DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE
Student: Stephen Patrick McCormick
Title: Remapping the Story: Franco-Italian Epic and Lombardia as a Narrative Community
(1250-1441)
This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of Romance Langauges by:
Barbara K. Altmann Co-Chairperson
F. Regina Psaki Co-Chairperson
Robert Davis Member
Warren Ginsberg Member
Leslie Zarker Morgan Outside Member
and
Richard Linton Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies/Dean of the
Graduate School
Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School.
Degree awarded June 2011
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© 2011 Stephen Patrick McCormick
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DISSERTATION ABSTRACT
Stephen Patrick McCormick
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Romance Languages
June 2011
Title: Remapping the Story: Franco-Italian Epic and Lombardia as a Narrative Community
(1250-1441)
Approved: _______________________________________________
Barbara K. Altmann, Co-Chair
Approved: _______________________________________________
F. Regina Psaki, Co-Chair
(cid:1)
(cid:1) My dissertation focuses on the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Franco-Italian
literary corpus. These texts, written in a hybrid French-Italianate language, include such
works as the Entrée d’Espagne and, more famously, Marco Polo’s Le devisement dou monde.
Using postcolonial theory, I identify nationalist ideologies in modern scholarship that have
marginalized the Franco-Italian tradition. This tradition exemplifies a medieval aesthetic of
cultural and linguistic hybridity that defies modern constructs of national linguistic identity,
border politics, and linguistic purity. My revisionist study argues the independent merit of
medieval Lombard literature and replaces the national model with a mosaic of overlapping
linguistic and cultural centers mapped according to their respective narrative communities. I
use two Franco-Italian texts—a version of the Chanson de Roland and the Huon d’Auvergne
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—to explore how the borders of the modern printed book have distorted our interpretation of
medieval Lombard works.
The Chanson de Roland exists in ten French versions. Following nineteenth-century
textual emendation praxis, most modern editions are based on Oxford Bodelian Digby 23.
The Franco-Italian version of the Chanson de Roland (Biblioteca Marciana fr. IV [=225]), or
Venice 4, has received little critical and editorial attention. I problematize the putative
superiority of the Oxford manuscript and propose the theoretical apparatus necessary to
reinterpret the Venice 4 text within its geo-social specificity, outside the textual borders of the
modern printed literary classic.
Finally, I explore how each Huon d’Auvergne manuscript can function as a
performance artifact which, because of its irreproducibility, must be considered an original
document, not merely a component within a hierarchy of textual transmission. I examine how
Andrea da Barberino later creates an authoritative, politicized reading of the Huon
d’Auvergne by removing it from its manuscript matrix and placing it within the textual
boundaries of chapters and books.
By de-stabilizing and de-centering notions of literary canon and linguistic purity, my
study suggests new ways of interpreting not only minority medieval narrative traditions but
also present-day hybrid language migrant narratives in both France and Italy.
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CURRICULUM VITAE
NAME OF AUTHOR: Stephen Patrick McCormick
PLACE OF BIRTH: Durango, Colorado
DATE OF BIRTH: 9 August 1979
GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED:
University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
Università degli Studi di Padova, Padua, Italy
Centre d’Etudes Supérieures de Civilisation Médiévale, Poitiers, France
Université de Nantes, Nantes, France
University of Redlands, Redlands, CA
DEGREES AWARDED:
Doctor of Philosophy, Romance Languages, 2011, University of Oregon
Master of Arts, Romance Languages, 2005, University of Oregon
Bachelor of Arts, Romance Languages, 2000, University of Redlands
AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST:
Franco-Italian Epic
Nineteenth-Century Medievalisms
Middle Ages in Film and Science Fiction
Musicology and Music in the Middle Ages
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
Graduate Teaching Fellow, University of Oregon, 2002-2006; 2008-2010
Instructor of English, British Institutes, Castelfranco Veneto, 2007-2008
Instructor of English, Coligny Cornet et Paul Eluard, Poitiers,
France, 2006-2007
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Instructor of Italian, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, summer 2008
Instructor of French, Hawarden Hills Academy, Riverside, CA, 2000-2002
GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS:
University of Oregon Doctoral Research Fellowship, University of Oregon, Full
tuition remission and stipend for AY 2010-2011
Mary A. Wetzel Graduate Fellowship, University of Oregon, Conference Attendance
in Geneva, Switzerland, 2009
Medieval Academy of America CARA Scholarship, Seminar on Medieval Codicology
and Palaeography, University of New Mexico, 2006
Department of Romance Languages Summer Research Award, University of Oregon,
Research in Poitiers, France, 2006
Department of Romance Languages Summer Research Award, University of Oregon,
Research in Pienza, Italy, 2004
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This dissertation was written by a community of friends, family, professors and
colleagues, all of whom provided the necessary and invaluable support needed for the
completion of this project. It is difficult to find the words to express my gratitude to Professors
Barbara K. Altmann and Regina F. Psaki who, for the past nine years, have been a constant
source of encouragement, guidance and inspiration along this long journey. My passion for the
stories, humor and wisdom of the Middle Ages grew out of our many meetings in their offices
and these moments will make for many of the fondest memories of my graduate school career.
I am forever indebted to their standards of excellence and their tireless commitment to my
education; this dissertation would not have been possible without them. I would also like to
express my special thanks to Professor Leslie Zarker Morgan. Our many phone conversations
and our meetings in Baltimore, Geneva and Los Angeles have been critical to the success of
this project. Her enthusiasm for Franco-Italian literature is contagious, and I owe many of this
project’s insights to her encouragement and suggestions. I wish to also express my sincere
appreciation to Professors Robert Davis and Warren Ginsberg, both of whom have offered
invaluable suggestions and insight into language, teaching, philology, Chaucer and Dante. I
owe a debt of gratitude to Professors Lori Kruckenburg and Nathalie Hester, whose charisma
and guidance have been instrumental in my professional development. Deciphering medieval
plainchant manuscripts and playing the part of messer Nicia in a play at the local coffee shop
are only two of many lasting memories I owe to these two mentors. Although it is impossible
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to thank everyone who has contributed in the writing of this dissertation, the sustained support
of four loyal friends - Andy, Emily, Jon and Rocky - must not go unmentioned.
I would like to thank the office staff of the Department of Romance Languages -
Christina, Linda and Zack - for attempting to make me stay organized, and I am especially
indebted to the hard work of the faculty for making my graduate school experience
challenging, exciting, enriching. I would also like to thank the Department of Romance
languages for their funding over the past nine years and the generosity of the University of
Oregon Graduate School, which has provided the necessary funding to carry out archival
research in Italy. Finally, I wish to thank Dr. Furio Brugnolo at the Università degli Studi di
Padova and the Biblioteca del Seminario Vescovile for generously making the necessary
documents and manuscript available during my research trip to Padua, in Fall 2010.
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