Être à table au Moyen Âge ed. by Nelly Labére

Abstract

works by Flaubert, letters written to and by Flaubert, opinions about him written by his contemporaries, and sometimes comments written by contemporaries on contemporaries, such as the inclusion of Guy de Maupassant’s description of Zola in the Zola entry. This makes for fascinating reading: one can read straight through an item, or follow a series of asterisks, somewhat like following an Internet thread. To give some examples, one might enjoy the comments by Flaubert on Bouvard et Pécuchet, which reveal his ups and downs, exuberance and despair. Or perhaps one might enjoy the entry, “Dimanche,” composed of the impressions of writers who went to Flaubert’s ‘dimanches’ on the rue du Temple. Some long entries contain sub-entries, such as the one for Flaubert’s versions of the Tentation de Saint-Antoine. It contains a first sub-entry for the “Version de 1849,” with its own sub-entries, “Lecture à Bouilhet* et Du Camp*” and “Appréciation.” This is followed by second and third sub-entries for the 1856 and 1874 versions, the latter of which includes again its own sub-entries, “Résumé par Émile Zola,” “Gestation ,” “Rédaction,” “Dernières corrections,” “Publication,” and “Réception.” All combined, this one large entry takes up more than seven dense pages filled with different aspects of and points of view on this Flaubert text. Flaubert’s words are italicized, whereas other voices appear in plain text. This selection of themes is necessarily limited and subjective, because it would be an impossible task to give every instance of every theme in all of the works. I find this dictionary to be useful and interesting, and it may well generate fruitful investigations of some of the myriad themes and concepts in Flaubert’s world. Boston University Dorothy Kelly LABÈRE, NELLY, éd. Être à table au Moyen Âge. Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2010. ISBN 978-84-96820-49-4. Pp. xvii + 277. 24 a. Scholars’ growing appetite for the study of culinary themes has resulted in a number of recent publications centering on food or drink. This collection participates in the trend yet is innovative in scope: it unites essays focusing on eating in medieval texts from France and the Iberian peninsula. Contributors consider their subjects through a variety of lenses, some taking a linguistic approach, others privileging a literary or historical perspective. While the literary works—which represent diverse genres and languages—are not traditionally studied together, juxtaposing them enriches the reading of each and creates a productive dialogue concerning the role of eating in medieval literature. Each of the three main sections—“Les règles de l’appétit,” “Découper le texte,” “Manger le texte”—gathers articles on assorted texts. The first part illustrates the collection’s range. Katy Bernard examines the depiction of the jealous husband in Le roman de Flamenca, arguing that food and eating are closely tied to Archimbaut’s feelings and behavior. Estelle Doudet’s essay explores feasts in memoirs and official chronicles of fifteenth-century Burgundy, specifically those by Jean Chartier, George Chastelain, Olivier de La Marche, Jean Lefèvre de SaintR émy, and Philippe de Commynes. She concludes that meals serve both narrative and political causes. In his study of eating and late medieval French theater, Jelle Koopmans demonstrates that food served during festivities surrounding performances was as integral to the spectacle as the meals in the plays themselves . Other essays in the group treat women and desire in the Vita Christi and Reviews 389 Tirant lo Blanch (Beatriz Ferrús Antón); spiritual food in the Flos Sanctorum (José Aragüés Aldaz); greed and lust in sapiential literature (Marta Haro Cortés); ritual in El Cantar de Mio Cid (Francisco Bautista); and fasting in a Portuguese work, La plainte de Maria la Noiraude (Maria José Palla). After the second section—all contributors focus on El Libro de Buen Amor (Santiago Sánchez Jiménez, Bienvenido Morros Mestres, Labère) or La Celestina (Nathalie Peyrebonne, Carlos Heusch)—the final part begins with María Cuesta Torre’s essay on food in Castilian Arthurian texts before featuring a series of analyses of French texts. Messages conveyed by food in tales from the twelfth to...