Galvez first reflects on how she views canonicity as a medievalist working in Old French and Old Occitan. Second, she explores how the mediality of medieval studies can help us convey to our students the relevance of French literature today. Finally, she synthesizes her points on French literary history and medieval studies to argue that scholars of different periods and methodologies can and ought to reinvest in a shared inheritance of global French.
While medieval literature offers many models of solitary thinking, vernacular lyric confronts the problem of solitude in a unique mode. Comparing the event of lyric dispossession with Petrarch’s idea of solitude, this essay examines solitary presence as a musicopoetic art form across various vernacular traditions, from the Occitan works of Bernart de Ventadorn, William IX, and Arnaut Daniel to lyrics of the Iberian Peninsula.