La “Chanson d’Yde et Olive” au carrefour des genres et des frontières: entre épopée, théâtre et “cantari” italiens

Abstract

An epic cycle emerged at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries, comprising a series of continuations to Huon de Bordeaux. What we call the Chanson d’Yde et Olive unites three different sequels, Yde et Olive I, Croissant and Yde et Olive II, which recount the adventures of the granddaughter and the great-grandson of the hero of Bordeaux. Sharing the same themes and motifs as tales, hagiographic legends and romances, these texts reflect the archetypal fluidity of the late epic, thus comprising representative samples of the genre. More specifically, the Miracle de la fille d’un roy, Tristan de Nanteuil and two Italian cantari, Antonio Pucci’s La Reina d’Oriente, and Pietro of Siena’s Cantare di Camilla, converge on the same narrative diptych depicting a homosexual marriage scene and a final metamorphosis. It is the most stable and undoubtedly the oldest dramatic core, that each work has tried to encase within its own narrative. Yde et Olive is the first text that introduces it by a widespread opening in contemporary literature, that of the incestuous father, which is found in the same configuration in the Miracle de la fille d’un roy and the Cantare di Camilla. Flourishing on both sides of the border, the tradition of the miracle plays, from which the cantari, characterized by a strong theatrical connotation, often draw their subjects, has undoubtedly contributed to the transmission of the matter of Yde et Olive in Italy.