Gender and Genre in Medieval French Literature

This wide-ranging study explores the ideological framework of genre in Old French and Occitan literature by charting the relationship between ideology and gender in five key genres: the chansons de geste, courtly romance, the Occitan canso, hagiography, and the fabliaux. Simon Gaunt offers new readings of canonical Old French and medieval Occitan texts such as the Chanson de Roland, Chr?tien de Troyes’s Chevalier de la charrette, and lyrics by Bernart de Ventadorn, and in addition he considers many less well-known works and less familiar genres such as hagiography and the fabliaux. Drawing on contemporary feminist theory, he examines how masculinity, as well as femininity, is constructed in medieval French and Occitan texts, and shows that gender is a crucial element in the formation of the ideologies that underpin medieval literary genres.

1. Monologic masculinity: the chanson de geste; 2. The knight meets his match: romance; 3. Troubadours, ladies and language: the canso; 4. Saints, sex and community: hagiography; 5. Genitals, gender and mobility: the fabliaux.

In this wide-ranging study of Old French and Occitan literature, Simon Gaunt draws on contemporary feminist theory to examine how masculinity, as well as femininity, is constructed in these texts, and shows the crucial role of gender in the formation of the ideologies that underpin medieval literary genres.