Le Laborintus d’Évrard l’Allemand, ou le roman familial d’un grammairien mélancolique
abstract
Among the six ‘poetic arts’ edited and commented by Faral in 1924, Evrard l’Allemand’s Laborintus is undoubtedly the one that, since then, has known the most mediocre fortune. It is the only one that has never been re-edited or translated. This paper proposes a new analysis of this poem trying to question the reasons of this absence. Did Laborintus, which was rather known in the Germanic countries during the last centuries of the Middle Ages, suffer from the banality linked to its doctrine whose success would outshine it? Or, rather, did it suffer from the originality of its character, as we can see from the autobiographic development of its first part and the enigmatic character of its title? In the light of such questions, this paper will deal with Laborintus’ relation with other poetic arts, namely Horace’s and Geoffroy de Vinsauf’s.
Keywords: Diffusion in Germany • Poetics • List of authors • Forms of versification • Mothers • Defence of poetry • Godmothers and foster mothers