Controlling Readers: Guillaume de Machaut and His Late Medieval Audience (Studies in Book and Print Culture)

Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377) was the master poet of fourteenth-century France. He established models for much of the vernacular poetry written by subsequent generations, and he was instrumental in institutionalizing the lay reader. In particular, his longest and most important work, the Voir dit, calls attention to the coexistence of public and private reading practices through its intensely hybrid form: sixty-three poems and ten songs invite an oral performance, while forty-six private prose letters as well as elaborate illustration and references to it's own materiality promote a physical encounter with the book.In Controlling Readers, Deborah McGrady uses Machaut's corpus as a case study to explore the impact of lay literacy on the culture of late-medieval Europe. Arguing that Machaut and his bookmakers were responding to contemporary debates surrounding literacy, McGrady first accounts for the formal invention of the lay reader in medieval art and literature, then analyses Machaut and his bookmakers'innovative use of both narrative and bibliographical devices to try to control the responses of his readers and promote intimate and sensual reading practices in place of the more common public performances of court culture. McGrady's erudite and exhaustive study is key to understanding Machaut, his works, and his influence on the history of reading in the fourteenth century and beyond. Cover Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Reading and the Laity PART I: Inscribed Readers: The Invention of the Lay Reader in Text and Image 1 Reading between the Lines: Responses to Lay Literacy in Late Medieval Manuscripts Early Models of Reading: The Private Reader and the Docile Student Filtering Professional Reading Practices through Lay Books The Vernacular Author as a Learned Reader The Lay Reader of Vernacular Literature 2 Lay Readers in Guillaume de Machaut’s Voir dit The Lay Reader: Variations on a Theme The Reader as Author: A Critical Gaze on the Power of Delivery and Interpretation to Alter Texts Creating Boundaries: Strategies in the Voir dit to Limit Reader Involvement PART II: Intermediary Readers and Their Shaping of Machaut’s Voir dit Catering to the Professional Reader: The Earliest Copy of the Voir dit (BnF, MS fr. 1584) Attracting the Patron’s Gaze: A Competing Copy of Machaut’s Manuscripts (BnF, MSS fr. 22545–22546) Making Space for Performance: Resuscitating a Maligned Codex (BnF, MS fr. 9221) 3 Instructing Readers: Metatext and the Table of Contents as Sites of Mediation in BnF, MS fr. 1584 Seeing and Finding the Text: Deictic Marks and Readers’ Encounter with the Material Artefact How to Read the Voir dit: Guidelines for the External Audience Machaut’s Intermediary Readers and the Genesis of the MS A Table of Contents 4 Illustrations and the Shape of Reading: Pictorial Programs in BnF, MS fr. 1584 and MSS fr. 22545–22546 Illustrations as Organizational Tools Illustrations as Interpretative Tools The Art of Reading and Writing in MS F 5 Layout and the Staging of Performance in BnF, MS fr. 9221 The Status of Music in Copies of the Voir dit Music in MS E Reciprocal Reading and the Architectonics of the Text: Reconstructing the Voir dit through Song, Letters, and Poems The Impact of Layout on Delivery PART III: Inventive Readers and the Struggle for Control 6 Eustache Deschamps as Machaut’s Reader: Staking out Authority in the Master(’s) Text Constructing Identity through Machaut: Deschamps’s Recycling and Reinvention of the Master’s Poetic Identity Redefining the Lay Reading Experience: The Case of Ballade 127 and Deschamps’s Public Performance of Machaut’s Voir dit Collapsing the Book: Deschamps’s Reading of Guillaume Reading Livy 7 ‘Nouveleté gaires ne gist’: Jean Froissart’s Reinvention of the Author–Reader Relationship Facing the Reader: The Virelay Episode and the Poet’s Reception The Text Makes the Man: The Purloined Letter Episode and the Question of Authenticity Poetic Collaboration: The Reader’s Contribution to Literary Creation The Material Artefact as a Site of Collaboration 8 Reading and Salvation: The Case of Pierpont Morgan, MS M 396 Modernizing Machaut: The Pm Alterations within Their Cultural Context The Voir dit Alterations Salvation and the Ethics of Reading Conclusion: The Residual Text, the Fading of the Author, and the Role of Technology Appendix I: Pictorial Content for the Voir dit in MSS A, F, and Pm Appendix II: Pm Manuscript Alterations Appendix III: Illustration Key Notes Bibliography Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T V W Illustrations

Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377) was the master poet of fourteenth-century France. He established models for much of the vernacular poetry written by subsequent generations, and he was instrumental in institutionalizing the lay reader. In particular, his longest and most important work, the Voir dit, calls attention to the coexistence of public and private reading practices through its intensely hybrid form: sixty-three poems and ten songs invite an oral performance, while forty-six private prose letters as well as elaborate illustration and references to it's own materiality promote a physical encounter with the book.

In Controlling Readers, Deborah McGrady uses Machaut's corpus as a case study to explore the impact of lay literacy on the culture of late-medieval Europe. Arguing that Machaut and his bookmakers were responding to contemporary debates surrounding literacy, McGrady first accounts for the formal invention of the lay reader in medieval art and literature, then analyses Machaut and his bookmakers' innovative use of both narrative and bibliographical devices to try to control the responses of his readers and promote intimate and sensual reading practices in place of the more common public performances of court culture. McGrady's erudite and exhaustive study is key to understanding Machaut, his works, and his influence on the history of reading in the fourteenth-century and beyond.

"Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377) was the master poet of fourteenth-century France. He established models for much of the vernacular poetry written by subsequent generations, and he was instrumental in institutionalizing the lay reader. In particular, his longest and most important work, the Voir dit, calls attention to the coexistence of public and private reading practices through its intensely hybrid form: sixty-three poems and ten songs invite an oral performance, while forty-six private prose letters as well as elaborate illustration and references to it's own materiality promote a physical encounter with the book."-- From publisher's website