An analysis of the narrative past tenses in the Old French fabliaux
Description
This study concerns the use of the present, the passe compose, the passe simple, the imparfait, the plus-que-parfait, and the passe anterieur in the Old French fabliaux, short, comical narrative verse forms that peaked in popularity in the thirteenth century. Scholars have proposed a variety of explanations for the seemingly random alternation between these tenses in Old French texts ranging in nature from grammatical analyses to examinations of the pragmatic functions of different verb tenses. However, no one explanation has proven to be sufficient A detailed analysis of the fabliaux, a genre that has been ignored in research on this phenomenon, reveals that tense usage reflects elements of textual structure. The systematic temporal logic of the prologues, epilogues, narrator interventions, and passages of mimetic discourse stand in opposition to the chaotic verb tense distribution found in the narrative hearts of the fabliaux The tense switching that characterizes the diegetic passages of the fabliaux reflects the unique position of the fabliaux in the history of French language and literature. The fabliaux are doubly transitional texts. They were composed at a time when the French language was in a state of flux. Furthermore, the fabliaux are oral texts reproduced in writing. As such, they embody the tensions inherent in capturing a performance on parchment. The tense use in the narrative portions of the fabliaux are thus the result of a complex interplay between the state of the French language in medieval France, the meanings of the tenses, the various pragmatic functions attached to the tenses, the complications of recording oral literature in written form, prosodic requirements, and the dynamics of live performance