Desire by Gender and Genre in Trouvère Song. (Gallica, 10) by Helen Dell

Abstract

1136 Reviews main alteration is to adopt modern paragraphing, which facilitates easy reading, especially of the epic Gui, which runs to 12,920 lines. Weiss's translation is flowing and colourful, and supported by comprehensive footnotes which defend her choice ofwords, draw attention to previous editorial corrections, and point out manuscript variants. She takes pains to avoid any am biguity ofmeaning, as in her translation of Ta mer de Bretaine' in line 750 as 'the Breton coast\ combining both nuances of the original phrase. In sum, this is an excellent scholarly edition of both texts,which it is to be hoped will contribute to a renewed critical interest in insular romance. Queen's University Belfast Mariana Neilly Desire by Gender and Genre in Trouvere Song. By Helen Dell. (Gallica, 10) Cambridge: Brewer. 2008. x+227 pp. ?50. ISBN 978-1-84384-164-7. Helen Dell's study focuses on issues thathave been explored indepth in troubadour scholarship but, as of yet,mostly neglected with regard to theNorthern French lyric tradition. Her work aims in part, therefore, to counteract criticism which has privileged not only the Southern poetry, but also the 'high-style' chanson over the pastourelle and the chanson defemme. Dell adopts a psychoanalytic line of enquiry to support her argument, a primarily Lacanian reading of how genre affects the expression of desire by both masculine- and feminine-voiced poets. Dell begins by setting out her 'kaleidoscopic methodology' (p. 20), consisting of three sets of paired chapters that 'follow each other on the basis of difference' (ibid.). Thus her firstchapter on masculinity in trouvere lyric is followed by one on femininity in the system, her third chapter on masculine desire followed by one on feminine desire, and her fifthchapter on 'chronotopic' relations to feminine desire followed by an investigation of itsapplication tomasculine desire. The layout seeks to enable 'a turning of the kaleidoscope for each chapter so that the relations between the terms shake down into a different pattern with different differences emerging (ibid.). The first two chapters on the song system successfully introduce the complex ities of categorizing the feminine voice in trouvere lyric, showing how genre and gender are irrefutably linked, the subjugated feminine position being associated with the low-register chanson defemme. Dell's decision to focus solely on feminite textuelle rather than attempting to establish the identity of the 'female' poet, as some trobairitz scholarship has done, shows her dedication to an essentially the oretical approach. In certain places, however, it is hard for her to strike the right balance between psychoanalytic interpretation and close reading. Her analysis of themutable feminine voice is, for example, accompanied by a rather protracted discussion ofAristotle, Lacan, and JudithButler,which somewhat overshadows her generally perceptive interpretation of the trouverematerial. The subsequent chapters on desire centre on the dichotomy between the high style chanson and the low-style pastourelle, and on feminine desire as expressed in the chanson d'ami. Dell's treatment of the latter is instructive, challenging critical MLR, 104.4, 2009 1137 neglect of the feminine expression of reciprocal desire in trouvere lyric.However, the resulting equality between desirer and desired that this exposes simultaneously manages tounravel her Lacanian methodology. Dell struggles tofit thisdiscrepancy into her overall argument, describing reciprocal desire as a bland, vanilla configu ration' (p. 99) that devalorizes the chanson cVami through lack of conflict, a theme which ostensibly now enters the discussion in order to provide an answer to the difficultquestion Dell has posed herself. It is inher study of the chronotopes' of desire?a termborrowed fromBakhtin? thatDell's line of enquiry becomes harder to follow. The last of the paired chapters explore masculine and feminine relations to space and time and how these affect and inform expressions of desire. Her analysis of the feminine-voiced poetry in cludes a lengthydiscussion of Freud's case studyDora, in an attempt to provide a comparison with the position of the female trouvere. In Chapter 6Dell's treatment of 'masculine space-times' inexplicably includes a scientific formula to calculate speed in the poetry (given as time divided by distance travelled), describing the male-voiced poet as one whose 'temporal versatility ismirrored in his spatial mo bility (emblematized...