Kontroverse Konstrukte. Die Erforschung des Mittelalters und die Erfindung der Romanischen Philologie

Abstract

With regard to the etymological relationship between chose and cause in Romance languages, Michel Serres, in his Elements d’histoire des sciences, postulates that the best way to approach the history of a subject is to take a close look at the controversies that accompany it. The history of Romance philology is particularly apt to be written from the perspective of its causes, in so far as its beginnings were marked by many disputes, ambivalences and contradictions. Moreover, the discipline itself has seemed to be a controversial construct, an »impossible subject« (Nies/Grimm), whose existence is put in question time and again. Since Romance philology gained its early profile by investigating medieval languages and literatures — notably the poetry of the Provencal troubadours — matters of dispute mainly concerned the Middle Ages. Besides the factual issues, for example the debate over the authority of the verdicts passed by the cours d’amour, the general attitude of the modern age towards the Middle Ages is of great importance here: since Romance philology has its roots in German Romanticism as well as in French National historiography, Romantic poetry and the Romantic sense of nationality also affected the development of the discipline, in an ambivalent way. This essay aims at tracing the formation of Romance studies by focusing on some of its first protagonists and issues of debate.