Tenso

REVIEW ARTICLE READING FLAMENCA AGAIN, WHY? Huchet, Jean-Charles, trans. Flamenca, roman occitan du XIIIe siècle. Paris: Bibliothèque médiévale 10/18, 1989. Zumthor, Paul. Introduction à la poésie orale. Paris: Le Seuil, 1983. The new edition of Flamenca edited and translated by JeanCharles Huchetcomes at atime when the study ofmedieval literature at most American universities seems already to have lost currency. Given the decreasing number of scholars entering the field, the paucity of MLA job listings for medievalists, and the dwindling course offerings (other than the sometimes still requisite and much hated History of the Language course for the PhD) and enrollees (graduate and undergraduate), even some medievalists might hazard the question, "Why?" "Because it is there!" is no reason—except perhaps foroverprivilegedmountainclimbers. Itmostcertainly is not acceptable in an academy under fire for accountability and relevance (nottomentiononewranglingwithissues ofcanons versus diversity). There are, however, other defensible answers. Two works by perhaps the best known medievalists of our time point to a possible justification. UmbertoEco's TheName oftheRose, inboth its written and film versions, clearly demonstrates that the Middle Ages and semiotics can excitecuriosity, even enthusiasm, ifclothedin theright stuff. This rightly labeled 'postmodern' detective narrative confuses signs and signifying practices, genres, temporalities, as well as theoretical, theological, practical and fictional discourses.1 It is the slippage, the grey zonebetweenfactandfantasy, then andnow, us and them, that seduces us in The Name of the Rose but also brings us to grapple withjust how we represent ourpast and ourpresent,just how we constructreality from real or imagined images and texts. Modem representations of medievalia—particularly in enlightening tomes and in the disciplinary minutiae of philology—have fallen into a chasmofennui: moreover, hardly anybody believes theirpositivistic or empiricist "science." Postmodem renditions, on the other hand, can rekindle interest because they engage us in vital dialogues. The secondworkis thatofPaul Zumthor. Although amedievalist might immediately assume that I refer to his Parler du moyen âge, I do not. The latter was a watershed work denouncing the inherent rigor mortis ofcertain kinds of medieval studies. It is his subsequent work, Introduction à la poésie orale, however, that offers the other Review Article67 justifying view ofthe medieval community's endeavors. The all-permeating cultural phenomenon of orality in the Middle Ages has subtended Zumthor's thinking about poetry in general. Now as we enter an age of second orality marked with the mediations ofliteracy and technicity, he has allowed his musings to cut huge swaths across both time and space to consider to what extent oral discursivities are maintainedin andbyvarious cultural cognitive structures,whateffect literacy has had on perception and cognition (in concert with Walter Ong's and Jacques Derrida's work), and what psychical changes are underway in the global village throughout its ever growing networks of telecommunications. Most importantly, however, he has recalled the (absent) body of performance from the morgue of literacy, reminding us of the hot breath, pulsating bodily rhythms, deepthroated resonances and vibrations, and sensuous hands, thighs, and lips alwayspresentinthelivelihoodofpoetryandpoetics. In sodoing, he strives to break the representational modalities of objective, deeroticized therefore fetishizing, sterile academic discourses on poetries . Hereafterit will be difficult to think theMiddleAges withoutthe warm bodies of poets, troubadours, and audiences—without the music of life. Moreover, it will be difficult to exoticize the difference —spatial or temporal—of any poetic invention. Despite its wealth, however, Zumthor's text has two flaws. It attempts to totalize the untotalizable—something he tried before in his Essai depoétiquemédiévale, wherein he statedthe uncircumscribable nature of medieval poetics and then proceeded to delineate the field.2 Were his not such serious work the (perhaps unconscious) irony of the endeavor would be lost on us. The second flaw in his second poetics is one of technology: the book as medium simply is not sufficient to the task. By all rights this work should have availed itself of the latest gadgetry: laserdiscs replete with stereo soundtracks , photos, full motion video, written documents, cross-referencing software and the like. Ofcourse, such an explosion of secondary oralities would have taken years longer, very deep pockets, and acast ofco-workers and producers ifnot copyrightlawyers topublish. Eco clearly was able to manipulate some of the...