Of Sound and Sense:

The Notion of Lyric and

Methods of Lyrical Insertion in Raimon Vidal and Jean Renart

At the start of the thirteenth century two authors take up the same task: the composition of a narrative with lyrical insertions.  In the Roman de la rose ou de Guillaume de Dole by Jean Renart and So fo e.l tems by Raimon Vidal de Besalù octosyllabic verses open up to integrate lyrical fragments.  Two different understandings of how language functions and what lyric is imply two very different examples of how to introduce lyric into a narrative and the function of lyrical insertion itself. 

            For Raimon Vidal, troubadour lyrics are meaningful, communicating the laws of love.  It is then words of wisdom that are introduced into the nova So fo e·l temps where protagonists attempt to live the troubadour model of love.  Raimon Vidal provides introductory epithets to quotations telling protagonist and audience who the author is and how to use the words cited: to learn, to assuage suffering, to imitate or avoid a behavior.  These quotations are interchangeable with the debating actors’ discourse.  The quoting of troubadour lines is not an attempt to escape the real world but rather the attempt to erase the fissure between the ideal world of troubadour lyric and that of its audience. 

            For Jean Renart song is “ornament” included in his “novele chose” so that “ja nulls n’iert de l’oir lassez” (none will grow tired of hearing it).  The quotations do not function on the level of the discourse leading Gaston Paris to say that they “n’expriment pas de tout les sentiments qu’il [the protagonist] doit avoir.”  Yet, critics insist on studying the lyrical insertions in Roman de la Rose “en fonction de leur contenu” (Accarie).  Jean Renart twists the narrative so as to present a scene in which singing might be plausible while Raimon Vidal instead tailors the verses to fit his rhyme and meter.  Jean Renart announces the style and adds the verses without altering the song’s meter and rhyme and without the lyric’s meaning affecting the storyline. The insertions here function as blocks set apart both formally and functionally from the narrative. 

The procedure of lyrical insertion allows an author’s understanding of language to surface, the idea of what lyric represents, to come through.  A comparison of two hybrid texts hints at how varied and complex the notions of language and lyric were in the thirteenth century.