Desnaturat son li Frances: Language and Identity in the Twelfth-Century Occitan Epic

Abstract

DESNATURAT SON LI FRANCES: LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY IN THE TWELFTH-CENTURY OCCITAN EPIC Todaywordslike"French" and "Occitan" aremarkers ofidentity as well aslinguistic categories.* However, thishas not alwaysbeen selfevidently the case and this article will seek to contribute to the documentationoftheemergent associationbetweenlanguageand identity intwelfth-century Occitania. Theprevalence ofLatin astheinternational language ofhighculture, apoliticalmap ofEuropeinwhichlinguisticand political frontierswere rarely coterminous, and a sense ofthe Saracen or GermanicOtherasinfinitelymoreforeignthan speakersofotherRomance languages are factors that mean that differences between Romance languagesrarelyhadanydiscernibleideologicalvalueinthetwelfthcentury. Butbythe endthetwelfth and beginning ofthethirteenth centuries texts writtenforavariety ofdifferentreasonsindicatethatlanguageinWestern Europe hadbecome a strong markerofcultural and political difference, a marker, in otherwords, ofidentitycategories: consider, forexample, the bilingual tensocomposedbyRaimbaut deVaqueirasincollaborationwith an anonymous Genoesewomanin whichRaimbaut speaks Occitan, but his interlocutor speaks Genoese while criticizinghis"Provençal" ways and speech.' How and why, then, does linguistic difference emerge as a basis ofidentity? One factor is surely that language begins to play a role in the erectionofboundariesthatdefinewhat isforeign. InthisarticleI willfocus upon two twelfth-century Occitan chansons de geste—Girart de RoussilionandDaureletBeton—that mayhavebeenpart ofthisprocess inOccitaniaandFranceinthe secondhalfofthetwelfthcentury.2Whether these texts should be viewed as a partial cause ofemergent linguistic identities, oras a symptom ofthem, is not aproblemI canhopeto solve here: bothtextswere probably originally composed shortly after 1 150; bothtextsconcernconflict betweenNorthern and SouthernFrance; both evincelinguisticpeculiarities,thoughtodifferentdegrees, inthatbothtexts survivein anOccitanthat is lacedwith hybrid forms, that isformsthat are 10 "DESNATURAT SON LI FRANCES" neither French nor Occitan but which have elements ofboth. It is also perhaps relevant to note that despite evidence that other chansonsde geste were disseminated in Occitan in thetwelfth century, these are the onlytwosubstantialpoemstohavesurvived(andDaurelonlyinfragmentary form). In other words, the chanson de geste is therefore primarily a "French" genre.3 A number ofhypotheses have been put forward to explain the linguistic peculiarities ofthese texts: oneis thattheyreflectadialect spoken onthe linguisticfrontierbetweenFrenchand Occitan; anotheristhat one orboth texts were originally composed in French andthat we have "bad" translations; yet another is that theuse ofgallicized forms results fromthegeneric specificity ofthe chansonsdegeste whichareidentified asFrench; finally, it hasbeen suggested that thelanguemixte oiGirartin particularresultsfromadesiretobroadenthepotential publicofthepoem by makingit intelligible to bothFrench and Occitan speakers. I shall returnto the relative plausibility ofthese hypotheses in duecourse. I wish firstto sketchthetheoretical framework I shall useto considerthe significance ofthe linguistic features ofthese two unusual texts: postcolonial translationtheory. Thenotionoftranslationinpostcolonialtheoryhasabroaderresonancethan simplythetransposition ofatext orutterancefrom an original to atargetlanguage: translationbecomes anissuewhenevertwo cultures come into contact with each other; it can define national identities, with the point ofcontact between two cultures being crucial to the definition of borders. Hybrid forms, accordingto this view, are symptoms ofcultural transactions. To quoteJacquesDerrida"'Translation' identifiesherenot a distinct genre ... but ratherazone for engaging with the possibility and impossibilityofan 'absolutelypure, transparent, and unequivocaltranslatability ' wherewhat is at stakeisthequestion ofthehistorical constituenciesthat arerepresented intranslations."4 Thus inarecent, semi-autobiographical intervention, Derridareflects ongrowingup incolonialNorthAfrica, where Frenchwasboth his 11 SIMON GAUNT own language, and yet also that ofa hegemonic culture he only knows fromtheoutside, as a subordinate. Hence hebegins withtheaffirmation: "the onlylanguage I speak is not mine" (Monolingualism ofthe Other 5),awhileheclaimsat anotherpointthatthemonolingualcolonial subject's use ofFrenchis infact"atranslationwithout apole ofreference, without an originarylanguage, and without a source language. For himthere are onlytarget languages," (61) whichleadshimto assert that"All culture is originarilycolonial," (39)andthatalllanguage"isthelanguageoftheother" (25). But ifDerrida paints a picture ofthe subject (all subjects) as the product ofinvasionbythe other's language, henonetheless leaves open the possibilitythatthe subject might resistthe other's hegemony: For contraryto what one is often temptedto believe, the masterisnothing.And he doesnothave exclusive possession ofanything. Because the master does not possess exclusively, and naturally, what hecalls his language, because , whatever hewants or does, he cannot maintain any relations ofproperty or identitythat are natural, national, congenital, orontological,with it, because hecangive substancetoandarticulatethisappropriationonlyinthecourse ofanunnaturalprocess ofpolitico-phantasmaticconstructions . (23) Ifthe languageoftheotherisnot "naturally" his, thenthisleavesit opento others to appropriate for their own purposes, whatever the other may pretend. This, inturn, isreflected inrecent speculations byJudithButler in "RestagingtheUniversal"aboutthepoliticalpossibilitiesoftranslationwithin apostcolonial context. Iftranslationis always potentially acolonial gesture , Butlerstressesithasotherpossibilities: itcan, forexample"bringinto reliefthenon-convergenceofdiscourses so that onemight knowthrough the very ruptures ofnarrativity the founding violencesofan episteme" (3T). Translationsometimestherefore"exposesthelimitsofwhatthedominant discoursecanhandle" (5). Thefocuswouldthenbe asmuchonwhat translationleaves out—the irreducible kernel offoreignnessthatwill not 12 "DESNATURAT SONLI FRANCES" and cannotbe translated into thetarget language—as on what atranslation is ableto transpose from onecultureto another.5 How might these ideas enrich our understanding oìGirart and Daureland their linguistic peculiarities? Beforeturningto...