French language and literature in the Middle Ages

Book section : Chapter

This chapter examines the language of French literary texts in the Middle Ages. Medieval French literature evolved substantially, from its sparse early texts couched in rare manuscripts alongside Latin to the multitude and diversity of textual production in the late-fifteenth century, as the printing press was taking over. As literary genres developed and evolved, from verse to prose, from being performed or read aloud to being read silently, so did the ways of telling stories and the language they were told in, which reflected diatopic, diastratic, diaphasic, and diamesic variation. This evolution was accompanied by a developing alertness as to what this language should be and how it reflected the different ideologies portrayed in various literary genres by increasingly self-aware authors and intellectuals.

Authors: Marnette, S

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Host title: The Oxford Handbook of the French Language
• Pages: 705-727
• Chapter number: 27
• Series: Oxford Handbooks
• Place of publication: Oxford
• Publication date: 2024-07-18
• Edition: 1
• DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198865131.013.29
• EISBN: 9780191897542
• ISBN: 9780198865131
• Language: English
• Keywords: dialects; literary genres; performance; diatopic variation; diastratic variation; diaphasic variation; metalinguistic comments; orality; scripta; diamesic variation
• Subtype: Chapter