The 'Vida' of Queen Fredegund in 'Tote Listoire de France': vernacular translation and genre in thirteenth-century French and Occitan literature

Leglu, C. (2017) The 'Vida' of Queen Fredegund in 'Tote Listoire de France': vernacular translation and genre in thirteenth-century French and Occitan literature. Nottingham French Studies, 56 (1). pp. 98-112. ISSN 0029-4586 doi: 10.3366/nfs.2017.0170

Abstract/Summary

This article examines the role that translation may have played in the development of medieval vernacular literature. It analyses an extract of an early 13th-c. translation into a hybrid French-Occitan vernacular of an 8th-c. historical text, the 'Liber Historiae Francorum'. The translation coincides with the adoption of narrative prose both in Old French and in Occitan literature, which reflects a growing interest in historical writings. The second half of the article compares the anecdote with the narrative structures and content of one of the troubadour 'vidas' and 'razos' - biographical texts in prose that emerged in the same period and regions as this translation. The article concludes by suggesting that the new vernacular genre shares narrative features with the early medieval Latin text that are preserved in its translation.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/39405
Identification Number/DOI	10.3366/nfs.2017.0170
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies (GCMS) Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Literature and Languages > Languages and Cultures > French Arts, Humanities and Social Science > Language Text and Power Arts, Humanities and Social Science > Identities
Publisher	Edinburgh University Press
Download/View statistics	View download statistics for this item