L’auteur, le narrateur et les quatres dames. Une construction singulière, une posture particulière

Abstract

Unlike Guillaume de Machaut or Jean Froissart before him, Christine de Pizan who was his contemporary, or François Villon after him, Chartier signs little to nothing of his texts, whether French or Latin. Yet the public has often identified Chartier as an author with his narrators. But what's striking is that, speaking as a lover, the acteur (the narrator) refuses a certain auctorial status. And if there is a signature in both ‹Belle dame sans merci› and ‹Livre des quatre dames›, it’s one that appears to be set back. In the second work, moreover, the narrator sends the debate to be settled with an epistle to the one he loves. This message is also the messenger of the fearful lover. Indeed, two of the manuscripts of the text give a small body to this character placed in the narrator’s track. In the London volume, he brings the book to the lady-judge, and if we analyze the image as that of an auctorial dedication, then the image reinforces our reading of the texts: iconographically, too, the author is downplayed in relation to the actor.