Reviews 31 René Nelli, LeRoman deRaimon deMiraval, troubadour (suivide ses chants d'amour). Paris: Albin Michel, 1986. Pp. 200. FF95. In the wake of Margaret Switten's masterful edition of the poetry of Raimon de Miraval, it is difficult to know how to evaluate Rene Nelli's work on the same poet. It is perhaps fairest to point out from the start that Nelli was not writing a scholarly work for a scholarly audience. On the contrary, his aim here, as in many ofhis works, was to popularize thepoet in particularand the troubadours in general by expanding, hypothetically, upon the slim information we now have. His reconstructions, in short, follow a different path from those of Switten, as his audience and purpose differ as well. Nelli is writing in a well-entrenched tradition — or amalgamation ofsuch traditions. His work divides into two major parts, the roman and modern French translations of twenty-two of Raimon's chansonsd'amour. The roman, written in thevoiceofRaimon, is first and foremost an expatiation on the extant vidas and razos: the major facts found in these explanatory works are borrowed and developed to offer a completed picture of the troubadour and his times. Long sectionsofhypothetical dialogue between Raimon and hisfriends are inserted. Here Nelli chose to assume the tone and form of a Platonic dialogue as he pursues topics such as the nature of love and women and, as such, hits upon an interesting extrapolation ofthe troubadour Zeitgeist. Certainly there is some justification for casting such discussion in Platonic form, and die suggestion that a Platonic approach somehow approaches that of the vida is fascinating indeed. For the creative blurring ofmyth and reality— ofart and life — that one finds in Plato's Syposium or Phaedrus is indeed probably the closest model we have for the mixture of fact and fiction the vidas proffer. The included chansons are welcome, though one finds little difference between Nelli'stranslations and thoseofL. T. Topsfieldof twenty years earlier, and one misses the original Occitan. The choice oflyrics,justifiedby theirbeingmostrepresentativeofthetroubadour understanding of love, is made in the best florilegium tradition. The work concludes — or I should say is concluded, as this section was added by the publisher after Nelli's death — with a postscript entitled "Reincarnations." This section was drawn from a piece Nelli wrote at the same time as the work on Raimon, and it 32 REVIEWS explains in neo-Proustian terms how the conceit ofthe novel came to him one night when he fell asleep holding a rock from Raimon's castle. The notes appended include a useful concordance crossindexing the lyrics with other editions, both textual and musical, available at the time of Nelli's work. One needs to suspend certainjudgments when reading a work of this nature. It is not, as I said at the start, a scholarly work for a scholarly audience. Perhaps my greatest difficulty with this book is that it reinforces assumptions current scholars are working so hard to uproot. Theimplication thatcanso,vidaand razo areallderived from fact, or mat the vida is a historical document are issues that Poe and Egan, among others, have cast in serious doubt. Similarly, the neoProustian echo suggests a Romantic approach to the troubadours which hasbeen hardenough to shake. A work such as thepresentone is indeed charming and pleasant to read and does enable a wider audience to learn about the troubadours. Accessibility to the troubadours is certainly a worthy goal. Ultimately, however, accessibility based on nineteenth-century assumptions needs to be approached with caution. Sarah Spence University ofGeorgia Works Cited Egan, Margarita, ed. and tr.Vidas dels Trobadors (The Vidas ofthe Troubadours). New York: Garland Publishing, 1984. Poe, Elizabeth Wilson. From Poetry to Prose in OldProvençal: The Vidas, theRazos, and the Razos de trobar. Birmingham, AL: Summa Publications, 1984. Switten,MargaretLouise. TheCansosofRaimondeMiraval: aStudy ofPoems and Melodies. Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1985. Topsfield, Leslie, ed. and tr. Les Poésies du troubadourRaimon de Miraval.. Paris: Nizet, 1971. ...
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