Constantinople and the West in Medieval French Literature: Renewal and Utopia by Rima Devereaux

Abstract

associated with the study of so-called‘nature writing,’ as the celebration of the natural world (by writers like Thoreau or Annie Dillard, for example), Chelebourg shows that eco-fiction also contains what he calls a “réalisme panique, une angoisse de l’avenir qui vient opposer la ‘réalité’ présente de la planète à l’idéal lénifiant entretenu par la contemplation de sa beauté” (10). Chelebourg isolates a strain of narratives that belong to an ‘heuristics of fear’ whereby a disastrous future is made present so that the imagination can confront and possibly master its terrible chaos. Hence, eco-fiction is akin to science fiction because it tends to mix scientific foresight with prophetic prediction (10). However, eco-fiction can also include realist narratives like documentary films. To cite one notable example,Chelebourg examines the portrayal of Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth, directed by Davis Guggenheim. Here, the circulation and reception of information regarding climate change is compared to hand-to-hand combat in the ring of public opinion. Chelebourg thus shows that climate change “relève du storytelling ” (72) in that the film links the story of environmental degradation with that of Gore’s defeat in the 2000 presidential election. Nevertheless, following an extensive analysis of blockbuster Hollywood ‘disaster’ films—I Am Legend (Francis Lawrence, 2007); The Day After Tomorrow,Independence Day (Roland Emmerich,1996 and 2004); Resident Evil (Paul Anderson, 2002); and over one hundred others—Chelebourg concludes that beyond its status as a literary or cinematographic genre, eco-fiction constitutes both a prescription for action against man-made environmental disasters as well as a confrontation with“l’imaginaire d’une époque fascinée par sa puissance et terrifiée par un avenir dans lequel elle ne sait plus lire que des promesses de déclin”(227). In sum, eco-criticism in French is a new field and this book is an admirable and worthy contribution to its development. University of South Carolina Jeanne Garane Devereaux, Rima. Constantinople and the West in Medieval French Literature: Renewal and Utopia. Cambridge: Brewer, 2012. ISBN 978-1-84384-302-3. Pp. vii + 234. $90. This study analyzes representations of Byzantium (also referred to as Constantinople ), an ideal city that inspired admiration and imitation in ten Old French and Franco-Italian texts from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Despite the city’s substantial difference and utopian status, it served as a model for renewal in the West. This monograph has triple goals: to show the debate in the texts between“renewal and utopia” (2), to consider how the readings question notions of genre, and to examine East-West relations and their social context. Devereaux concludes that the West’s complex relationship with Constantinople“enacts a debate on the idea of the city as renewal and utopia”(183), one in which both positions have positive and negative aspects. The work contains three parts of two chapters each. In part one,“Renewal and Utopia: The 260 FRENCH REVIEW 87.3 Reviews 261 Terms of the Debate,”chapter one provides background material including Augustine’s views on the notion of city and modern literary critics on utopia. Chapter two treats the role of relics brought to France from Constantinople or Jerusalem and the rivalry with Byzantium in Eracle and the Pèlerinage de Charlemagne.Both texts posit Byzantium as a model to be imitated, despite its political and religious separation from the West, but one that also engenders political tensions in the form of competing emperors and mistrust following the Second Crusade. Chapter three of part two, “Constantinople Desired”discusses narratives depicting a marriage alliance between a western man and the well-educated female relative of a Byzantine emperor. The unions in Partonopeus de Blois and Girart de Roussillon constitute a form of limited political renewal, in the former for the monarchy, in the latter through the construction of a monastery. Chapter four treats the Franco-Italian chanson de geste Macario and a chronicle of the Fourth Crusade, the Conquête de Constantinople by Robert de Clari, both of which include an alliance between the West and Byzantium that culminates in renewal. Admiration for Constantinople leads to the resolution of...