The invention of literary subjectivity

Abstract

In the course of the 13th century, writers in France discovered literary subjectivity. It was not the introspection of philosophy, or the confession of a soul, or the vanity of a memoir. Rather, the subjectivity they disclosed was the play between personality and page. The discovery allowed differences of individual opinion and perspective which, when expressed through literary means, raised issues of history, of truth and evidence, and ultimately of authority. The I of 13th-century literature became an arena of invention, exploration and expansion as a simple literary convention developed into an array of new genres. In this work, the author examines these developments by looking anew at the French Arthurian tradition and the Roman de la Rose. He traces the rise of subjectivity in the lyrics of the French medieval period and examines both biographies and histories written by Abelard, Raymond Lulle and Joinville.

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