La Belle Dame qui eust mercy & Le Dialogue d'amoureux et de sa dame: A Critical Edition and English Translation of Two Anonymous Late-Medieval French Amorous Debate Poems ed. by Joan Grenier-Winther

Abstract

Reviewed by: La Belle Dame qui eust mercy & Le Dialogue d'amoureux et de sa dame: A Critical Edition and English Translation of Two Anonymous Late-Medieval French Amorous Debate Poems ed. by Joan Grenier-Winther Glynnis M. Cropp Grenier-Winther, Joan, ed., La Belle Dame qui eust mercy & Le Dialogue d'amoureux et de sa dame: A Critical Edition and English Translation of Two Anonymous Late-Medieval French Amorous Debate Poems ( MHRA Critical Texts, 60), Cambridge, MHRA, 2018; paperback; pp. lxxi, 99; R.R.P. £12.99, US $17.99, €14.99; ISBN 9781781882856. Alain Chartier's La Belle Dame sans mercy (1424) generated controversy and imitative works now called the Belle Dame cycle, from which Joan Grenier-Winther has edited two short debate poems, contained in the manuscript Paris, BnF, MS fr. 1131, fols 184r–189v and 195r–201r respectively. La Belle Dame qui eust mercy (378 lines) has already been edited, with English translation, by Joan E. McRae: Alain Chartier. The Quarrel of the Belle dame sans mercy (Routledge, 2004, pp. 20–21, 453–84), on the basis of Paris, BnF, MS fr. 20026. Attested in twenty fifteenth- and sixteenth-century manuscripts, three incunabula and early printed editions containing collections of works, it was more widely known than Le Dialogue (414 lines), which is found in only four manuscripts and three incunabula and early printed collections, and is edited here for the first time. In all the witnesses, the texts follow Chartier's poem and are single and separate from one another. Like the courtly partimen and jeu-parti, and Chartier's poem, both texts consist of alternating sequences, here of three stanzas, exchanged by an unhappy suitor and a courtly lady. In the first, surprisingly, the lady decides finally to relent and show favour, reversing the outcome of Chartier's debate. In the second, a merciless lady sternly dismisses the pleading lover, telling him to look elsewhere. In the introduction Grenier-Winther has set out material, stylistic, and thematic evidence supporting her claims, concerning the bipartite structure, authorship, and dating of the texts, based in part on those proposed by Arthur Piaget in 1894, which he subsequently did not pursue. The versification of both texts changes about midpoint, from eight- and ten-lined stanzas respectively to unusual thirteen-lined stanzas with a different rhyme scheme, which suggests that in each case two originally separate poems might have been combined. Accordingly, in this edition each text is divided into Poem 1 and Poem 2. Material evidence and the development of the argument in each text are considered. Although Poem 1 of both texts is a coherent entity and might stand alone, it is not so attested in manuscripts. Furthermore, as had Piaget, Grenier-Winther attributes Poem 1 in both instances to Oton de Granson (d. 1397), whose poetry she has edited. This attribution has, however, the disadvantage of situating the composition of Poem 1 of both texts [End Page 252] in the fourteenth century, before Chartier's La Belle Dame. There is insufficient evidence to determine authorship and dating of the two sets of treizains, which remain anonymous (pp. xix–xxxi). Despite Grenier-Winther's wish to attribute partial authorship to Oton de Granson, the edition's subtitle describes the texts as anonymous. A list of all witnesses, a full description of the base manuscript, shorter descriptions of other manuscripts and early printed editions, and their affinities are included (pp. xxxi–xlix). J. C. Laidlaw's system of identifying Chartier's manuscripts (The Poetical Works of Alain Chartier, Cambridge University Press, 1974) has been adopted, and supplements information on the order of poems in collections. Sections on titles, language, versification, stylistics, rhetorical elements, and a bibliography complete the long introduction. A few oversights occur: foliation of manuscript Qd should be '57r–63v' (p. xxxv); omission of a section number '§7' (p. xlvi); the date of Piaget's article on Oton de Granson should be '1890' (p. lxii). The text has been established according to sound principles and is complemented by copious variant readings (pp. 54–77), tables of rhymes (pp. 78–92), and a glossary (pp. 93–99). English translations on...