French Literature Reviews - 2026
A. Corbellari, Le Philologue et son double. Études de réception médiévale
Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Review published in Acta Fabula (November 2015, vol. 16, no. 7) : "The “Eternal Return” of the Middle Ages" by Michaela Bjugglält-Châteaux.
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Alain Corbellari, Le Philologue et son double - Études de réception médiévale
Paris : Classiques Garnier, coll. "Recherches littéraires médiévales", 2015.
EAN 9782812430831
485 p.
Overview :
The question of the “reception” of medieval literature in modernity is currently in vogue, and scholarship on the history of medieval studies is steadily growing. Having worked on these topics for two decades, and arguing that the two are inextricably linked (medievalists having influenced the secular reception of medieval literature and vice versa), the author has gathered and structured here, in updated versions, various standalone contributions that shed light on and complement his previous publications on Joseph Bédier. The aim of this book is to demonstrate that the issue of the “return of the Middle Ages” is fundamentally crucial to how we understand our own modernity.
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Alain Corbellari is a professor at the Universities of Lausanne and Neuchâtel. Author of Joseph Bédier, écrivain et philologue (1997), his research focuses on the reception of medieval literature, medievalist comic books, the medieval dream vision, and 13th-century literature. He co-directs the edition of Charles-Albert Cingria's Œuvres complètes and is preparing a new edition of Romain Rolland's Œuvres complètes for Garnier.
Table of contents (abridged)
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Table of Contents and Bibliographical Notices :
Introduction
“The History of Criticism as a Limiting Case of Literary History”, Études de Lettres, 4 (October-December 1995), pp. 37-49.
“Symbolism and the Medieval Revival: Legibility and Musicality of the Middle Ages”, in Alain Corbellari and Christopher Lucken (eds.), “Lire le Moyen Âge ?”, Équinoxe, 16 (Autumn 1996), pp. 69-79.
“From the ‘Bibliothèque des romans’ to Grand Opera: The Metamorphoses of Partonopeus in the 18th and 19th Centuries”, Mediaevalia, 25/2 (2004), pp. 79-91.
“Figures of Merlin: Edgard Quinet, Hersart de la Villemarqué, Gaston Paris, or: From the Collège de France to the Collège de France via Brittany”, in Laura Kendrick, Francine Mora, and Martine Reid (eds.), Le Moyen Âge au miroir du XIXe siècle (1850-1900), Paris : L’Harmattan, 2003, pp. 171-83.
“Old French as a Refuge: Émile Littré’s Medieval Fascination”, in Marie Blaise (ed.), “Le Moyen Âge des imaginations savantes”, Revue des langues romanes, 115/1 (2011), pp. 101-24.
“Renan as a Medievalist”, in Alain Corbellari (ed.), “Ernest Renan aujourd’hui”, Études de Lettres, 3 (2005), pp. 111-25.
“From Francisque Michel to Bédier: The Problem of Secular Theatre”, in Marie Bouhaïk-Gironès, Véronique Dominguez, and Jelle Koopmans (eds.), Les Pères du théâtre médiéval. Examen critique de la constitution d’un savoir académique, Rennes : Presses universitaires de Rennes, “Interférences”, 2010, pp. 73-84.
“Gaston Paris as Seen by Joseph Bédier”, in Teddy Arnavielle (ed.), “Gaston Paris (1839-1903) philologue, médiéviste, grammairien”, Revue des langues romanes, 106/1 (2002), pp. 69-79.
“The Spiritual Heritage of Gaston Paris through the Unpublished Correspondence of Joseph Bédier”, in Michel Zink (ed.), Le Moyen Âge de Gaston Paris, Paris : Odile Jacob, “Collège de France”, 2004, pp. 289-98.
“The Clerks' Repose and the Warrior's Betrayal”, in Laurent Adert and Eric Eigenmann (eds.), L’Histoire dans la littérature, Geneva : Droz, 2000, pp. 19-27.
“Émile Mâle and Joseph Bédier: From the Glory of France to the Apologia of the Clerks”, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 140 (November 1998), pp. 235-44.
“Rereading the Légendes épiques”, in Salvatore Luongo (ed.), L’Épopée romane au Moyen Âge et aux temps modernes. Actes du XIVe Congrès international de la Société Rencesvals, Naples, July 24-30, 1997, Naples : Fridericiana Editrice Universitaria, 2001, 2 vols., vol. II, pp. 843-56.
“Gormont, Isembard, Saint-Riquier, and Bédier”, in Danielle Buschinger (ed.), Saint Riquier à Saint-Riquier, Amiens : Presses du “Centre d’Études médiévales”, “Médiévales”, 13, 2001, pp. 25-31.
“Evolutionism and Philology: Exchanges and Encounters of Paradigms from the 19th Century to Joseph Bédier”, in Fernando Sánchez Miret (ed.), Actas del XXIII Congreso Internacional de Linguistica y Filología Románica. Salamanca 2001, Tübingen : Niemeyer, 2003, vol. V, pp. 155-62.
“Crossed Perspectives on Bédier and the Epistemology of the Human Sciences in 20th-Century France”, in Willy Jung and Grazyna Bosy (Hg.), Romanische Philologie als Herausforderung / Les défis des études romanes, Bonn : V&R Unipress, 2009, pp. 47-62.
“Translating Old French into Modern French: A Brief History of an Unfinishable Quest”, in Corinne Füg-Pierreville (ed.), Éditer, traduire ou adapter les textes médiévaux, Lyon : Université Jean Moulin, CEDIC, 2009, pp. 147-60.
“To Translate or Not to Translate: Bédier’s Dilemma. Regarding the Translation of La Chanson de Roland”, Vox Romanica, 56 (1997), pp. 63-82.
“Le Roman de Tristan et Iseut: Context and Avatars”, revised version of “Entre philologie et wagnérisme : Le Roman de Tristan et Iseut à la croisée des mouvements littéraires”, in Anne Ducrey (ed.), Le Moyen Âge en 1900, Lille, “Ateliers”, 26, 2000, pp. 37-44 ; “Joseph Bédier : (d’) écrire la passion. L’écriture et la fortune du Roman de Tristan et Iseut ”, in Michèle Gally (ed.), La Trace médiévale et les écrivains d’aujourd’hui, Paris : PUF, “Perspectives littéraires”, 2000, pp. 107-20 ; “Le Rendez-vous épié de Tristan et Iseut”, in Walter Lenschen (Hrsg.), Die Sprachen der Liebe / Langages de l’amour, Bern : Peter Lang, 2000, pp. 219-32, and “Tristan et Iseut sous le pin : Béroul vu par trois adaptateurs”, in L’amour des lettres. Festschrift für Walter Lenschen, ed. by A. Schwarz and A. Vacek, Bern : Peter Lang, 1999, pp. 37-48.
“Tristan and Iseut Among the Celts, or the Temptation of Purity in Some Post-Bédiérian Tristan Adaptations”, Cahiers de Recherches médiévales (12th-14th c.), 11 (2004), “Figures mythiques et médiévales aux XIXe et XXe siècles”, pp. 73-82.
“John Updike’s Tristanian Passion” (published in English version: “John Updike’s Tristanian Passion”, Tristania, 19 (1999), pp. 115-25, previously unpublished in its original French form).
“The Adaptation of the Guillaume Cycle by Paul Tuffrau, or Joseph Bédier's Influence on the ‘Epics and Legends’ Collection of Piazza Publishing”, in Réception du Moyen Âge dans la culture moderne, Amiens : Presses du “Centre d’Études médiévales”, 2002, “Médiévales”, 23, pp. 61-69.
“Arthurian Literature and its Adaptations in Interwar France”, revised version of: “Le Roman arthurien dans l’entre-deux-guerres : de l’édition à l’adaptation, les chemins d’une réévaluation”, in Isabelle Diu, Elisabeth Parinet, and Françoise Vielliard (eds.), Mémoires des chevaliers. Édition, diffusion et réception des romans de chevalerie du XVIIe au XXe siècle, Paris : École des Chartes, “Études et rencontres”, 25, 2007, pp. 173-85, and of “De l’entente cordiale des médiévistes aux Chevaliers de la Table Ronde de Jacques Boulenger : le renouveau arthurien dans la France de l’entre-deux-guerres”, Études Médiévales, 6 (2004), pp. 220-30.
“Cingria the Philologist: Poetry and Erudition in Writings on Medieval Lyric Poetry”, in Maryke de Courten and Doris Jakubec (eds.), Charles Albert Cingria. Érudition et liberté, L’Univers de Cingria, Proceedings of the Lausanne Colloquium, Paris : Gallimard, “Cahiers de la NRF”, 2000, pp. 144-59.
“From Rutebeuf to Léo Ferré: The Fortunes of the ‘Poète Maudit’”, in Réception du Moyen Âge dans la culture moderne, Amiens : Presses du “Centre d’Études médiévales”, “Médiévales”, 23, 2002, pp. 52-60.
“Paul Aebischer (1897-1977): Erudition Considered as One of the Fine Arts”, in Ursula Bähler, Richard Trachsler, and Larissa Birrer (eds.), Portraits de médiévistes suisses (1850-2000) Une profession au fil du temps, Geneva : Droz, “Publications romanes et françaises”, 246, 2009, pp. 235-59.
“Zumthor, Abelard, and Babel”, Études françaises (Montreal), 35-1 (1999), pp. 125-36.
“Contraband and Nomadism: Swiss-Romand Ties and the Nostalgia for Origins in the Work of Paul Zumthor”, Versants, 56, 1, French fascicle (2009), pp. 199-220.
“Is Medievalism Reactionary? From the Notion of Progress in our Perception of the Middle Ages” (published in an expanded English version, translated by Amy Heneveld : “Is Medievalism Reactionary? From Between the World Wars to the Twenty-first Century: On the Notion of Progress in our Perception of the Middle Ages”, Studies in Medievalism, 18 [2010], pp. 99-124, previously unpublished in its original French form).
Bibliography
Index
This collection of studies brings together two decades of academic research dedicated to the afterlife of medieval texts in modern times. Alain Corbellari investigates the intricate relationship between scholarly philology and the broader cultural fascination with the medieval period, showing how generations of scholars have constructed our current understanding of medieval literature. By examining key intellectual figures such as Joseph Bédier, Gaston Paris, and Ernest Renan, the volume illuminates the institutional and ideological frameworks that shaped medieval studies within French academia from the nineteenth century onward.
The book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of literary history, romance philology, and the history of criticism. It offers valuable perspectives on the transmission, translation, and adaptation of canonical works, ranging from epic poetry to Arthurian romance. By contextualizing these acts of scholarly and creative appropriation, the author invites readers to reflect on how modern culture continuously reinvents its medieval past, making it an essential resource for anyone exploring the enduring legacy of the Middle Ages in contemporary thought.