Abstract
In this book Attwood discusses the portrayal of Fortune as a figure of literary inspiration and creation in late medieval French literature, with some reference to Italian and British authors (Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch; Chaucer, Oton de Grandson, James I of Scotland). The book takes a thematic approach, rather than one based on the characterization of individual texts or authors through sustained close readings. However, certain authors do naturally receive more attention than others, resulting in more in-depth analysis of their corpora. Christine de Pizan is among the most important authors in the study, along with Machaut, Jean Regnier, Chartier and Charles d'Orléans. Jean de Meun, Villon, Froissart, Olivier de la Marche and of course key Latin writers such as Alain de Lille and Boethius also figure prominently. The book begins with a comparison of Fortune and Nature as tutelary figures presiding over literary creation. As Attwood points out, the ‘book of nature’ is timeless and descriptive, while Nature's gifts are focused on principles of form; Fortune, associated with deformation and dialectic, ‘authors’ the diachronic, ever-changing ‘book’ of historical events. Moving on to comparisons of Fortune with Love, and of Fortune with Misfortune, Attwood points out that Fortune shares with Love the qualities of being blind, capricious and variable; but the inconstance and moodiness of Fortune—and in particular the tribulations and melancholy brought on by Misfortune—are potent sources of poetic inspiration for late medieval authors. It is in the fourth chapter that the study really comes into its own, with some very interesting comparisons of Fortune and the authorial persona in the works of Christine de Pizan and Guillaume de Machaut; particular attention is given to the Mutacion de Fortune and the Voir Dit. The femininity of Fortune, for example, fosters identification with the capricious female love object; but Machaut also exploits identification between Fortune and the emasculated, weepy, semi-blind lover-narrator of the Voir Dit. Christine, for her part, exploits the theme of variability, metamorphosis and disguise to elaborate an image of the author as a de-feminised figure of both grief and fortitude, hiding her true self beneath poetic fictions just as deeper meaning lies hidden in the metaphors and allegories of poetry. Through these complex moves, both Machaut and Christine develop a kind of androgynous or hermaphroditic writing that is the very expression of the paradoxical and oxymoronic goddess Fortuna. Attwood builds on these insights in her final chapter, exploring the bi-partite, complementary and adversarial nature of so much late medieval poetry, from the complainte-confort structure of many dits amoureux, to the plethora of debate poems on all manner of topics. Fortune in her duality ultimately emerges as a figure both for the ‘écriture double’ of the late medieval author and for the author him or herself as one capable of comprising and orchestrating these diverse and mutually contradictory perspectives.
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