Reviews135 Sarah Kay,Subjectivityin TroubadourPoetry, Cambridge Studies in French, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Pp. 267. This attractive volume from the distinguished Cambridge French series contains 214 pages of text, 39 pages of notes and three and a halfpages ofselective bibliography, togetherwith an Index. Theauthorpresents sometheory,theexegesisofanumber of lesser-known and sometimes difficult troubadour poems, and thediscussionofmanymore ofthelyrics,takenfromawidevariety ofpoets. Kay does notdiscuss the melodies, but she does include someremarksaboutthereadings ofdifferent manuscripts,chiefly in discussing the different interpretations which can be obtained by considering the differing order of the stanzas. The book is dense, requiring close attention, but broken into manageable segments by means of subtitles, and including enumerations and summing-up sections which keep the reader on track. For those with no knowledge ofthe troubadour poems, this book could not be an introduction to these poets, for itdoes not contain the basic information, and would often seem impenetrable. On the other hand, for those already familiar with and interested in modern writing about the "subject" and autobiography and women's voices, the fact that the book is about the troubadours maybe no obstacle, since it contains enough quotations (always accompanied by English translations) to be quite accessible. Kay characterizes her own work as "eighties criticism" (p. 212), but her nods to the gurus ofthe decade are rapidlydisposed ofinthe firsttwopages (Lacan, Kristeva, Irigaray, andFoucault), afterwhichwemeetMarxonce(p.30),Todorovonce(p.226n.5j, and Derrida three times (p. 134 and notes on pp. 235, 236),while Freud surfaces only in the next to last note in the book. Neither MarxnorFreudappearsinthe Index. Readersofthetroubadours and their critics soon find, however, the familiar names of the discipline (not all quoted with full approval!): Bee, Curtius, Dragonetti, Dronke, Guiette, Köhler, Lejeune, Marshall, Zumthor, along with those which have become familiar in the last two decades: R. H. Bloch, Bogin, Bruckner, Cropp, Gaunt, Harvey, Kendrick, Paden, Paterson, Switten, Topsfield,etj'enpasse. Kay also takes into account recent books by such writers as Zink, GruberandMeneghetti,although shewasnotable toinclude Van Vleck, whose book was not published until the next year. 136Reviews The preoccupation of the book, however, is thoroughly modern. Itis concernedwiththe "subjectivity"which Kaydefines admirably early as: "The elaboration of a first person (subject) position in the rhetoric of courtly poetry," (p. 1) and with such topics as autobiography and women as authors, certainly the object ofmuch scrutiny in the eighties. The bookstakes out some criticalpositionswhichmustnecessarilyconflictwiththoseofPaul Zumthor and Erich Köhler. Kay does not return to the "autobio- Îgraphical assumption" which supposes some personal, more or ess "sincere," relation between the author and the ideas expressed in the lyrics. Instead, in four chapters on the lyric (IndeterminacyofMeaning ,Allegory,GenderandStatus,andPerformance ),she elaborates a new "subject"ofthe lyricwhichis the center fromwhich the poememanates. In afifth chapter, the conclusions ofchapters 2, 3 and 4 are shown to be helpful in explicating, respectively, the Roman de la Rose, Guillaume de Dole, and Flamenca. In the Introduction, Kay lays out her position, which is articulated with that of Paul Zumthor. She finds Zumthor's insistence on the "tradition" too monolithic. While songs do fit into and echo a tradition, they may do more: a troubadour may makeareferencenotjusttoageneralizedtraditionbuttothework of a particular predecessor. Some troubadours thus achieve the position ofanauctoritaswith respect to those whofollow. Certain troubadourseven form schools, whose poems may signify solidarityor disagreementwith theviews ofothers. Similarly, a poetmay make specific reference to one ofhis own earlier poems, showing thatthe authorreturns to a topic, perhapsto complement itorsee it from a different point ofview. These two types ofreferences to poems may introduce an historical or biographical element into the poems which force open the circle which Zumthor had imposed on thegrand chantcourtois. Kay ofcourse recognizes that Zumthor's interpretation is based more on the poems of the trouvères than on those of the troubadours. The first chapter, on Indeterminacy ofMeaning, shows how the first-person subject is split, diffused, or made otherwise ambiguous through textual devices that include a loosely defined irony, but also hyperbole, metaphor, metonymy and catachresis. Following Gaunt, Kay shows how a conflict ofmeanings is achieved byplayingoffone register against another, orby making ithard to discern which side of a metaphor is the tenor and which is the Reviews137 vehicle. Hyperbole...