RE-READING FRENCH MEDIEVAL LITERATURE: PARALLELS WITH FRENCH CONTEMPORARY IDENTITY
Erika Hess
Department of Modern Languages
Norther Arizona University
Contemporary issues of French national identity find surprising echoes in French medieval literature. The hybrid, gargoyle-like characters prevalent in French medieval romance, together with the open-ended narrative of the genre, combine to challenge the traditionally accepted order and underscore a concern with totalizing discourses or perspectives. In a similar manner, contemporary French novels, particularly those by immigrant authors, often feature hybrid characters whose multiple nature destabilizes physical, social and narrative identity. In the contemporary novels, Le Sommeil d’Eve, by the Franco-Algerian author, Mohammed Dib, and in L’Enfant de sable, by Franco-Moroccan author, Tahar Ben Jelloun, for example, we find central characters whose physical ambiguity or hybridism (as a werewolf and cross-dresser, respectively) highlight the multiple and unfixed nature of contemporary French identity.
Teaching medieval French literature with an eye to the commonalities between medieval and contemporary French literature helps students not only appreciate medieval literature in a new light, but also better understand contemporary issues of national and cultural identity. This essay develops a comparison of medieval and contemporary French narrative that highlights the questioning of a single identity or meaning, and touches briefly on new approaches to teaching medieval French literature.