The Nouvelles of Philippe de Vigneulles [thesis]

The recently published Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles by Philippe de Vigneulles (14-71-1528), cloth merchant of Metz and author of a Chronique and a book of Memoires. is a collection of tales in the tradition of the short comic narrative in French. Some tales are absent or amputated due to the mutilation of the only extant manuscript. The nouvelle as a genre, lacking a contemporary formal theory, has been defined, etymologically and pragmatically, as the telling of something new; compositionally, as a short tale presenting a situation which results in an unexpected outcome; esthetically, as a realistic form. The Italian novella. the facetia, exemplum, lai, and fabliau all contributed to its development. Philippe's prologues enlist the benevolent attention of the reader and provide an argument of authority, a modesty clause, a substantive introduction of the nouvelle. and a moral justification. His use of the term nouvelle is both as a pragmatic event and as a literary form; the meaning of nouvelle as new event is retained in the use of the term as a genre. Traditional elements are important and place the nouvelles in the greater genre called by Tiemann the Kurzerzählung. Two sequential models based on the sequence of events in each tale are abstracted from two basic types of narrative , one about foolish events and the other about clever events. Variations include repetition of all or part of the models and accentuation of any part. Narrative logic can be linear, circular, additive or alternative. Eleven thematic categories are described based on variations of the models. The outcome of the foolishness tales, a revelation, and the outcome of the cleverness tales, an uncontrolled situation, are homologous. The models theoretically describe the unity of the work. The purpose of the work is twofold: to amuse and to instruct. Modalities governing the comic outcome include knowledge, power- pretense, and desire. Attributes of the characters determine or are determined by the sequence of events. Laughter is present in the tales as a model for the reader's laughter, but also serves various social functions. Morals are important and take many forms, including implicit morals. The interrelation of both aspects is particularly evident in erotic and scatological tales, which show that immorality can be laughed at, and that laughter is the ultimate purpose of the work. An explicit claim to truth and reality, evident also in compositional techniques, is supported by four factors of concreteness (historical events, social customs, occupations, and physical aspects of daily life) which provide a background of social realism. The accumulation of detail in the description of events and psychological realism actualize the narration and serve to persuade the reader of a realism whose referent is not factual events but a literary tradition of realism. The style of the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles is original; other aspects of originality are the Metz local color, the strong presence of the author, the bourgeois values of the work, and the '’running frame." Not a humanistic work, the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles reaffirms and strengthens the young genre of the French nouvelle.