Table Of ContentRevisionary Retelling: The Metapoetics of Authorship in Medieval England
Gania Barlow
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
2014
UMI Number: 3628784
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ABSTRACT
Revisionary Retelling: The Metapoetics of Authorship in Medieval England
Gania Barlow
When Geoffrey Chaucer depicts characters debating the flaws of his works in The Legend
of Good Women, or when Marie de France tells histories of literary transmission to frame her
Lais, these authors are writing what I describe as metapoetic narratives. By “metapoetic” I mean
that their works are in part about the making of poetry, commenting on the authors’ poetic
activity and creative processes from within. My dissertation, “Revisionary Retelling: The
Metapoetics of Authorship in Medieval England,” examines how this self-conscious mode of
writing enables certain vernacular authors to reflect on their positions as retellers of well-known
narratives and established literary traditions. I argue that such self-reflection is central to the
efflorescence of vernacular literatures in medieval England.
In the last few decades, scholars have called into question the idea that the Middle Ages
valued only established literary authority and had no interest in originality, with recent critics
noting how medieval authors do make conscious use of the interpretive and distorting
possibilities of translation and retelling. Although this line of criticism has been revolutionary, it
still tends to view literary authority as inherently limited, so that newer authors must remain
entirely subordinate to their sources or seek to replace them. This dynamic of limited authority
would seem to be intensified for Anglo-Norman or Middle English retellers; long-standing
scholarly narratives have similarly cast the English vernacular languages as competing for
linguistic authority with Latin and French. “Revisionary Retelling” challenges these
understandings of vernacular creativity by bringing to light the alternative conceptions of
authorship and literary authority being invented and explored by writers working in both Anglo-
Norman and Middle English. Rather than simply accepting or rejecting a subordinate status,
authors such as Marie de France, the Orfeo poet, Thomas Chestre, Geoffrey Chaucer, and John
Lydgate take a revisionary view of the challenges inherent to translation and retelling: challenges
such as intertextual dependencies, interpretive distortions, and the recombination of traditions.
In their metapoetic narratives, these writers theorize authorship and literary authority by
dramatizing those types of literary challenges, as well as their processes of revision more
broadly. As these authors tell stories about the possibilities and problems of vernacular retelling,
they simultaneously imagine and enact a type of authorship—and a type of authority—based in
creative revision.
The first chapter traces this metapoetic mode back to Marie de France’s Anglo-Norman
Lais, arguing that Marie offers a vision of authorship as an ongoing, trans-historic process of
collaborative interpretation. Chapter Two examines how later Middle English lay authors
consciously use their second-class status in relation to the French lays to leverage themselves
into a position of critical distance from the traditions on which they draw. The third chapter
argues that Chaucer willfully depicts his own canon as dependent and unstable in his catalogues
of his works, and thereby takes ownership of the challenges of vernacular authorship and invents
himself as an authoritative Middle English writer. In my fourth chapter, I suggest that the
proliferation of literary authorities in John Lydgate’s Fall of Princes, which might seem to
constrain and subjectify the text, counter-intuitively asserts the equal value of writing across
languages, time, and retellings. Together, these four chapters demonstrate the rich complexity of
medieval critical retelling and the power of retold narratives to creatively revise not just their
sources, but also literary history itself.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 1
The surplus of the ore: Reinterpreting Transmission in Marie de France’s Lais. . . . . . . . . . . . 14
I. Obscurity and surplus in the General Prologue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
II. The jeweled box and the bare branch: Collaborative transformations in Laüstic and
Chevrefoil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
III. Choose Your Own Aventure: Living Interpretively in Yonec and Eliduc . . . . . . . . . . 41
Chapter 2
Of a ley þat was ysette: Revising the Lay Tradition in Middle English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67
I. The Exaggerated Minstrel-King of Sir Orfeo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
II. The Unmotivated Self-Authoring Hero of Sir Launfal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85
III. The “Fre” Author-Clerk of The Franklin’s Tale. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108
Chapter 3
He useth bokes for to make: Chaucer’s Catalogues of Vernacular Authorship . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
I. Subjected to Revision: The Constrained Translator of The Legend of Good Women . .129
II. Appropriating Revision: The Man of Law’s Magpie-Muse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .147
III. Perpetual Revision: The Retraction’s Author-in-process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .162
Chapter 4
Auctour, Translatour, Maistir, Prynce: Leveling with Authority in Lydgate’s Fall of Princes 177
I. Auctour and Translatour: Framing Narration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
II. Auctours upon Auctours: Remodeling Authorship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
III. Maistir and Prynce: Humbling Authorities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Bibliography: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
i
Acknowledgments
I could not ask for a better dissertation committee than Chris Baswell, Susan Crane, and
Eleanor Johnson. Their time, energy, skepticism, enthusiasm, and insight pushed this project
miles forward from where it began, making me think in different ways, say what I really mean,
and stop using additive transitions. Beyond the dissertation, they have given me uncountable
hours of time and invaluable advice and support in all aspects of the profession. They deserve
more thanks than I have room here to give. Many thanks also to Patricia Dailey and Tom
O’Donnell for their very thoughtful questions, comments, and suggestions during my defense.
Extra thanks are due to Susan Crane for supporting and guiding me from the first
moments of my acceptance into Columbia, and through every step of the process, with
astounding generosity and thoughtfulness. I also want to extend a general thanks to all of the
faculty and staff of the Department of English and Comparative literature who have been a part
of this process in any way, from chatting in the halls, to dealing with paperwork, to contributing
to the incredible knowledge and professionalization the department has to offer. In particular,
Sarah Cole’s amazing dedication of time, energy, and emotion to placement deserve huge rounds
of applause. I also owe special thanks to Consuelo Dutschke in the Rare Book and Manuscript
Library, for teaching me the joys of paleography and codicology in her spare time. And many
thanks to the faulty, staff, and fellow preceptors of Literature Humanities, especially Gareth
Williams, for helping make that course such a joy to teach. Columbia has been a wonderful and
transformational home, thanks to all of you.
No small part of making Columbia feel like home are my fellow grad students. I am so
grateful for all of my medieval colleagues past and present, in the colloquium formerly known as
ii
Medieval Guild and in the medieval Latin reading group, for creating a social and intellectual
community that makes me extremely proud (even smug) to be a medievalist. It has been an
honor to work and learn with you all. Likewise, I would probably not have made it through these
seven years without my graduate cohort, and especially my colleagues in Awesome Studies, to
make me laugh, play Rock Band, eat at Toast, occasionally leave Morningside Heights, and just
generally feel human.
I could fill a book with thanks to my family, whose love and support are just ridiculous.
My father Ralph, my mothers Carole, Susan, Sherry, and Patti, and my sisters Marianne and
Nicol are the best weird family I could ask for. Thank you so much for putting up with me and
believing in me through everything. Finally, so many and such enormous thanks to Tim
Donahue, for sharing in my freak-outs, bliss-outs, HBO series viewing, chores, extracurricular
activities, and life, and for making it all worthwhile.
iii
Introduction to
Revisionary Retelling: The Metapoetics of Authorship in Medieval England
I. What is a medieval author?
“Revisionary Retelling” changes the critical conception of medieval vernacular creativity
by uncovering a widespread practice of metapoetic reflection on authorship in medieval England.
Before we can address this metapoetics of authorship though, we must explore what a medieval
“author” is. To speak of an “author” in modern parlance is to speak not just of a writer, but
specifically of an original creator, an innovator of ideas.1 This modern conception absorbs an
obsolete usage of the word, which connoted “an inventor, constructor, or founder,”2 thereby
giving the modern idea of an author its implication of originality and innovation. The deeper
history of the word, however, tells a different tale about what an “author” can be. The word
comes into English from Latin through Anglo-Norman. The Anglo-Norman word “autour” or
“auctor” connects the originary, creative connotation of the word especially to God, while the
writerly connotation is linked instead to authority.3 “Auctor” is etymologically related to the
1 Dictionary.com even specifies that an author is “the composer of a literary work, as distinguished from a
compiler, translator, editor, or copyist”; “Dictionary.com,” accessed March 26, 2014,
http://dictionary.reference.com/. s.v. “author” 1a, (my emphasis).
2 “Oxford English Dictionary Online” (Oxford University Press, 2014), s.v. “author, n.” 1a. The OED
gives as two of its examples for this usage: “c1386. Chaucer Parson's Tale 808. ‘The auctour . . . of
matrimonye, that is Crist,’” and “1576. W. Lambarde Perambulation of Kent 264. ‘One Robert
Creuequer. . . the authour of the Castle.’”
3 “The Anglo-Norman Dictionary,” n.d., s.v. “auctor” 1, 6, http://www.anglo-norman.net/. See also
“OED Online,” s.v. “author, n.” 4. See also Minnis on what he calls a “translatio auctoritatis” (xxvii)—
the shift in medieval thought from locating authority exclusively with God as author of creation to
allowing human authors some authority over texts as well; A. J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship:
1
Latin “auctoritas,”4 and medieval usages of the word in connection to writing, in both Anglo-
Norman and Middle English, assume that sense of established authority, tying authorship to
tradition rather than innovation.5 The word “author” and the concept of authorship have, that is,
changed valence between the Middle Ages and today. If modern authorship necessarily implies
originality,6 medieval authorship necessarily implies tradition.
Strangely, medieval scholars—who are those best positioned to appreciate this shift—
nevertheless continue to privilege originality and innovation. It would be wrong, of course, to
suggest that the Middle Ages only valued established texts and authority and had no interest in
creativity. Yet medieval creativity functioned within a conception of authorship and literary
authority that valued the use, adaptation, and interpretation of authoritative traditions—a
conception of authority in which “writers gain authority less by their originality than by their
contribution to an ongoing tradition.”7 Scholarship remains stuck between that medieval
conception of literary authority as deriving from a relationship to traditions, and the modern idea
of literary authority springing fully formed from the head of the innovative genius who defies or
outstrips such traditions. While critics recognize in theory the inappropriateness of the modern
model of authorship for the Middle Ages, that modern understanding of authorship as agonistic
Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1988), xxvii, 73–117.
4 See also Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship, 10–12.
5 “AND,” s.v. “auctor”; “Middle English Dictionary,” n.d., s.v. “auctour,”
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/.
6 This is, to be sure, an overgeneralization, particularly given the past decades’ shift toward appreciating
and authorizing creative modes of remixing, mash-up, etc. These post-post modern phenomena in some
ways look quite medieval.
7 Jocelyn Wogan-Browne et al., eds., The Idea of the Vernacular: An Anthology of Middle English
Literary Theory, 1280-1520 (Penn State Press, 1999), 5.
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