Dorothy Gilbert wins Ina Coolbrith award for original poetry

IMFS member and author/translator of Marie de France: Poetry, Dorothy Gilbert has received two first place awards for her original poetry in the Ina Coolbrith 94th Annual Poets’ Contest.

From the Ina Coolbrith Circle’s webpage:

In 1919, poet/librarian/teacher Ina Coolbrith began meeting with kindred literary spirits at her home in San Francisco. “I want,” she said, “the Circle to live and be ever widening… to perpetually keep the history and literature…of California alive….”

Today, about 200 members of the Ina Coolbrith Circle continue to pursue her mission to nurture the poetry and history, past and present, of the Golden State. Our members include poets, writers, historians, artists and readers with a particular interest in books by and about Californians.

Call for Papers – Kalamazoo 2021

The International Marie de France Society is pleased to announce that it is sponsoring three sessions for the International Congress on Medieval Studies to be held at Western Michigan University from May 13-15.

Abstracts and queries should be sent to Dr. Simonetta Cochis, scochis@transy.edu, no later than September 15, 2020.

Food and Furnishings: The Domestic in Marie de France (papers)

Twelfth-century author Marie de France is renowned for female-focused courtly narratives, but her fictional worlds are not limited to courtly settings: they also present an intimate look at the quotidian domestic elements of the realms her characters inhabit. Domesticity links to issues of appetite and consumption, the physical presence and limitations of spaces and objects, the formation of sex, gender, and sexual identities, privacy and agency, among others, illustrating the domestic’s significance as more than merely backdrop.  Papers may address any of the known works by Marie de France (Lais, Fables, Espurgatoire seint Patriz, La vie Seinte Audree) or the anonymous lays. Comparative and interdisciplinary analyses are welcome.

Translating Marie de France: Challenges and Opportunities (A Roundtable)

This session focuses on the issues that affect the translation of the works of Marie de France. Four to seven presenters may address two broad areas: accurately rendering the substance of Marie’s texts or intentionally departing from their meanings, and the formal characteristics of the resulting translations. In the case of translations of Marie’s Old French into verse, this may include emulating the formal characteristics of Marie’s original or conforming to other formal characteristics. The objective is to generate discussion among roundtable presenters and participants regarding matters such as variations in word choice and syllable count, the use of rhyme, sentence length, and the use or avoidance of enjambment and sentence fragments. Participants will read excerpts from a variety of translations to demonstrate the impact on the modern reader.

Performances of Marie de France: Chaitivel

In this performance session, three to five performers will present the lai of Marie de France entitled Chaitivel. As in years past, the panel invites performers who revive the lai by using period music, new translations, and dramatic performances in the original language. As Evelyn Birge Vitz and others argue, hearing a text read aloud or watching its performance mirrors the way the work was received in the Middle Ages and enhances our modern understanding. Attendees regularly report that their perception of the work changes over the course of the session. The objective is to generate discussion about the use of voice, gesture, and music in the embodiment of the text – and how its performance reveals nuances of meaning that may be lost in silent reading.

New Member Publication – An Old French Trilogy: Texts from the William of Orange Cycle

Congratulations to Logan E. Whalen, past president of the International Marie de France Society, and his co-translators, Catherine M. Jones and William W. Kibler, on the publication of An Old French Trilogy: Texts from the William of Orange Cycle (University of Florida Press, 2020).

Cover image of An Old French Trilogy: Texts from the William of Orange Cycle

From the publisher:

While most English-language readers are familiar with Old French epic poetry, or chansons de geste, through the Song of Roland and its tale of gallant martyrdom, this volume provides a broader and richer view of the tradition by introducing songs devoted to the exploits of a different sort of hero—the brave and blustery William of Orange. An Old French Trilogy provides an updated English translation of three central poems from the twelfth-century Guillaume d’Orange cycle.            

 In The Coronation of Louis, the hero saves both king and pope from would-be usurpers and earns the nickname “Short-Nosed William” after a fierce, disfiguring battle with a Saracen giant. In A Convoy to Nîmes and The Conquest of Orange, William conquers two important cities and wins the love of the Saracen Queen Orable. Tremendously popular in the Middle Ages, these works stand the test of time, and the accessible translations capture the sense of the original Old French decasyllabic verse without attempting to preserve or imitate its formal properties. The introduction to the volume discusses literary devices and motifs; historical context; issues of religious conflict, otherness, and gender roles; and themes such as loyalty and courage.

Copies of the volume may be purchased on the publisher’s website for $85.

Jones, Catherine M., William W. Kibler, and Logan E. Whalen, trans. An Old French Trilogy: Texts from the William of Orange Cycle. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 2020.

Le Cygne, 3rd Series, Vol. 6 (2019)

Leave a reply

In the past year the 2019 issue of Le Cygne has appeared. It contains four articles on the works of Marie de France and two editions taken from MS S of the Lais. Karen Casebier writes about two episodes from the natural world that are found in Eliduc, the storm and the incident involving the weasels; taken together these episodes help to resolve the moral impasse of the lay. Amy Morgan examines the male space at King Arthur’s court and the links between Arthur and Henry II; dissatisfied with the court life of Henry II, Marie seeks an alternative female sphere through the departure of Lanval to Avalon. Susan Morrison looks at some recurring concepts in the Espurgatoire seint Patriz, including remembrance, revelation, satisfaction, and amendment (Marie amends a Latin work for the betterment of the reader). Carol Neel argues that scholars have neglected religious communities such as the one in which Le Fresne is brought up. To what extent does Le Fresne choose to leave the nurturing monastic community to live with Gurun? Or is she in fact offered to him to bolster the material welfare of the community?

The 2019 issue continues to provide editions of Marie’s lays as found in MS S (Paris, BnF, nouv. acq. fr. 1004). To Le Fresne and the Bisclavret fragment, printed in the 2017 issue, and Equitan in 2018, we now add two lays edited by Logan E. Whalen: the Deus Amanz fragment and Chievrefueil. It is our intention to print the lay of Milun in MS S in the 2020 issue of Le Cygne. The present issue concludes with a dissertation abstract (Amy Morgan) and details of an important new book on the narrative lays: Lais du Moyen Age: récits de Marie de France et d’autres auteurs (XIIe – XIIIe siècle), published in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade series.

Submissions for the 2020 issue of Le Cygne, and any comments or queries, will be very welcome. Glyn Burgess. (email address: af02@liv.ac.uk)

Call for Papers: IMFS @ ICMS 2020 (Kalamazoo)

The International Marie de France Society is pleased to announce that it is sponsoring three sessions for the International Congress on Medieval Studies to be held at Western Michigan University from May 7-10.

Abstracts and queries should be sent to Dr. Simonetta Cochis, scochis@transy.edu, no later than September 15, 2019.

Food and Furnishings: The Domestic in Marie de France (papers)

Twelfth-century author Marie de France is renowned for female-focused courtly narratives, but her fictional worlds are not limited to courtly settings: they also present an intimate look at the quotidian domestic elements of the realms her characters inhabit. Domesticity links to issues of appetite and consumption, the physical presence and limitations of spaces and objects, the formation of sex, gender, and sexual identities, privacy and agency, among others, illustrating the domestic’s significance as more than merely backdrop.  Papers may address any of the known works by Marie de France (Lais, Fables, Espurgatoire seint Patriz, La vie Seinte Audree) or the anonymous lays. Comparative and interdisciplinary analyses are welcome.

Translating Marie de France: Challenges and Opportunities (A Roundtable)

This session focuses on the issues that affect the translation of the works of Marie de France. Four to seven presenters may address two broad areas: accurately rendering the substance of Marie’s texts or intentionally departing from their meanings, and the formal characteristics of the resulting translations. In the case of translations of Marie’s Old French into verse, this may include emulating the formal characteristics of Marie’s original or conforming to other formal characteristics. The objective is to generate discussion among roundtable presenters and participants regarding matters such as variations in word choice and syllable count, the use of rhyme, sentence length, and the use or avoidance of enjambment and sentence fragments. Participants will read excerpts from a variety of translations to demonstrate the impact on the modern reader.

Performances of Marie de France: Chaitivel

In this performance session, three to five performers will present the lai of Marie de France entitled Chaitivel. As in years past, the panel invites performers who revive the lai by using period music, new translations, and dramatic performances in the original language. As Evelyn Birge Vitz and others argue, hearing a text read aloud or watching its performance mirrors the way the work was received in the Middle Ages and enhances our modern understanding. Attendees regularly report that their perception of the work changes over the course of the session. The objective is to generate discussion about the use of voice, gesture, and music in the embodiment of the text – and how its performance reveals nuances of meaning that may be lost in silent reading.

Call for Papers: New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies



From the New College Conference organizers:

The twenty-second biennial New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies will take place 12-14 March 2020 in Sarasota, Florida. The program committee invites 250-word abstracts of proposed twenty-minute papers on topics in European and Mediterranean history, literature, art, music and religion from the fourth to the seventeenth centuries. Interdisciplinary work is particularly appropriate to the conference’s broad historical and disciplinary scope. Planned sessions are also welcome. The deadline for all abstracts is 15 September 2019; for submission guidelines or to submit an abstract, please go to http://www.newcollegeconference.org/cfp.

Junior scholars whose abstracts are accepted are encouraged to submit their papers for consideration for the Snyder Prize (named in honor of conference founder Lee Snyder), which carries an honorarium of $400. Further details are available at the conference website.

The Conference is held on the campus of New College of Florida, the honors college of the Florida state system. The college, located on Sarasota Bay, is adjacent to the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, which will offer tours arranged for conference participants. Sarasota is noted for
its beautiful public beaches, theater, food, art and music. Average temperatures in March are a pleasant high of 77F (25C) and a low of 57F (14C).

More information will be posted on the conference website as it becomes available, including plenary speakers, conference events, and area attractions. Please send any inquiries to info@newcollegeconference.org.

http://www.newcollegeconference.org
PLEASE SHARE THIS ANNOUNCEMENT WITH INTERESTED COLLEAGUES.



ICLS Panels, Exeter, July 22-27, 2019

The International Marie de France Society has organized two panels for the 16th Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society to be held July 22-27 at the University of Exeter. For more information on the Congress, click here.

MARIE DE FRANCE I:

Kids, Cloth, Clothing, and Connections: Complex Communities in Marie de France

  • “It Takes a Village: Lactation and Childcare Communities in Marie de France’s Lais,” Miriam Rheingold Fuller
  • “Talking Textiles: Marie de France’s Le Fresne as Feminist Philomela,” Susan Hopkirk
  • “Fables and Lays: Constructing Community Through Carnivalesque Clothes,” Monica L. Wright
  • “Fessebouc or Social Networking in the Ysopet of Marie de France,” Tamara Bentley Caudill

MARIE DE FRANCE II:

Marie and the Afterlife: Religious Communities and Textual Transformations

  • “Thigh wounds, chastity surveillance, and gender ambiguity: Jewish-Christian Exegetical Exchange and Marie’s “Jewish” Knight in Guigemar,” Regula Meyer Evitt
  • “Community, Liturgy, and Authorship in Marie’s Vie seinte Audree,” Donna Alfano Bussell
  • “Marie de France and the Community of Lays in ms. S (Paris, BnF, nouv. acq. fr. 1104),” Logan E. Whalen
  • “Sing me to the End of Love: Marie’s Avian Messengers in Modern Welsh and Greek Song,” Christopher Callahan

Medieval Clothing and Textiles 15

Congratulations to IMFS member Monica L. Wright, co-editor of the recently-released Medieval Clothing and Textiles 15 (Boydell and Brewer, 2019).
From the publisher:

The essays in this volume continue the Journal’s tradition of groundbreaking interdisciplinary work. The volume opens with a survey of the discipline of medieval clothing and textiles, written by founding editor Gale R. Owen-Crocker. The range of the other essays extends chronologically from the early Middle Ages through the fifteenth century and covers a variety of disciplines. Topics include the conception of the author as a “wordweaver” in the literatures of Anglo-Saxon England; intertextual literary identities established through clothing in the Nibelungenlied and the Völsunga Saga; the historical record of clothing and textiles at the court of King John of England; medallion silks, their use in Western Europe, and their representation in art; the vestments of Beguines and other penitential movements in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; and a depiction of heraldic textile weaving in late-medieval art.

For more information or to purchase, click here.

Kalamazoo 2019

Papers of Interest:

S43, Thursday at 10
Far and Foul Winds in the Lais of Marie de France 
Karen Casebier, Univ. of Tennessee–Chattanooga

Session 242, Friday at 1:30
A Concerning Complex: Courtly Love and Chivalry in Marie de France
Rachel Walkover, Univ. of Rochester

S320, Friday at 3:30
Obscure Names: Reimagining Origins in the Lais of Marie de France 
Emily Dalton, Princeton Univ.

S348, Sponsored by the International Marie de France Society

Such Devoted Sisters: Sorority in Le Frêne and Eliduc 
Leslie Anderson, Bellarmine Univ. 

Conjecture: Deus amanz and Marie’s Identity 
Rupert T. Pickens, Univ. of Kentucky

Monastic Mothering: Marie’s Le Fresne and Historical Women’s Communities 
Carol Neel, Colorado College 

Femininity, Fear, and Friendship: Exploring the Homonormative in Marie de France’s Bisclavret 
Jillian K. Sutton, California State Univ.–Long Beach

International Marie de Society Business Meeting
Fetzer 1030, 12pm on Saturday

Le Cygne to JSTOR

We are very pleased to announce that Le Cygne has been added to the new collection Lives of Literature, offered by JSTOR.

According to JSTOR,

Lives of Literature is a collection of academic journals devoted to the deep study of writers and texts associated with core literary movements. When complete, Lives of Literature will include approximately 120 journals that are all new to JSTOR.


This resource is a direct response to faculty requests for a deeper and wider set of journal content to enhance their teaching of writers and texts associated with key literary movements. The collection supports advanced literary studies and interdisciplinary research on writers and texts critical to curricula in literature, and broadens the range of authors and texts covered on JSTOR. And with its focus on journals that use an author or text as a starting place, Lives of Literature also fulfills a scholarly resource need for in-depth study and courses on a single author or text—a curricular component at many institutions.

In “Medieval Authors and Texts” series, Le Cygne joins other highly-specialized journals such as Lectura Dantis and Petrarchesca.