Content area
Abstract
This dissertation provides a modern critical edition of Les Proverbes au conte de Bretaigne. Previous published versions are uncritical; lacking the rigor of twentieth century scientific editions, any linguistic study, conventional diacritics, and textual clarification. These proverbs (or, more exactly, sententia) are so original they deserve a surer basis for further study.
First the scholarship already devoted to this corpus of gnomic material is reviewed. Then relevant features of the scribal and authorial language are isolated to indicate the approximate date of copy and composition, and the region of France wherein copyist and poet originated. Versification is discussed in a separate chapter.
The text, fifty-four strophes, each consisting of two tercets which introduce a current pithy saying, is here edited according to texual principles and supplemented by a rendition into modern French. Appended are photographic reproductions of the unique manuscript, BN 19152.