Reading and the Book

The Old French poem Dolopathos, ¹ dating from the first quarter of the thirteenth century and translated by one Herbert from the Latin Dolopathos sive de rege et septem sapientihus by lohannis de Alt a Silva, ² is an undeservedly little studied member of the large family of Seven Sages texts. It may be seen as idiosyncratic, differing from the principal Western tradition from which the better known Old French Roman des Sept Sages derives, as it incorporates characteristics of the Eastern Book of Sindibad, and features that belong to neither tradition. ³ Both Latin and Old French Dolopathos texts suffered an unpromising early critical press, which may account for the limited attention they have received. Gaston Paris, for example, meted out quite scathing treatment to lohannis, dismissing his literary merits, and declaring he was “domin é par les doctrines qui régnaient alors dans les écoles et [qu’il] cherch[ait] a doter son récit des ornements que le goût puéril du temps avait mis à la mode” ⁴ (“influenced by the doctrines which at that time ruled in the schools and that he tried to embellish his narrative with elements which the infantile taste of that time had made fashionable”). In similar vein Domenico Comparetti inveighed against Herbert, whose Dolopathos he saw as “the naive and trivial conception of a common kind incapable of rising above the ordinary level of romanticism.” ⁵ Fortunately, more recent critics have made attempts to redress the balance in favor of the Dolopathos: Brady Gilleland, for example, speaks well of the Latin version and suggests that lohannis’s merits may be greater than the poet’s own modest claims or the critics’ harsh dismissal may suggest. The recent extensive work by Mary B. Speer on all the Old French Seven Sages material has also been helpful in rehabilitating the Dolopathos tradition. ⁶ Jessie Crosland, too, has remarked that the Dolopathos texts have received unfairly “scant justice from the critics” and points out that the Old French.Dolopathos in particular is “well worth study for its own sake and for the light it throws on contemporary society.” ⁷ It is this particular aspect of the Dolopathos which marks the starting point for this study, as the reflection of contemporary thirteenth-century mores has both redeemed the Dolopathos in the eyes of critics and makes this a particularly intriguing text to consider in the context of the book and the magic of reading. Even those critics most ready to condemn the Dolopathos poets as mere epigones, recycling the tired cliches of their day, draw particular attention to the noticeable authorial innovation of lohannis in the extensive description of the education bestowed upon the young prince, Lucinius. ⁸ It is precisely here that he deviates from the Western tradition and follows the Book of Sindibad in giving the boy only one tutor, adding his own touch by making him the poet Virgil, who appears as a character in tales belonging to the Western cycle. ⁹ This description is couched very much in the stereotypical ideology of its day, ¹⁰ but the familiar aphorisms we encounter also highlight some remarkable touches of pedagogical realism. The result is to bring the prince’s education into particular prominence, the motivation for this generally being attributed to the belief that lohannis was himself a schoolmaster. ¹¹ Turning to the Old French Dolopathos, we note that Herbert is, for the most part, a faithful translator of his Latin source, although he is quite prepared to omit much of lohannis’s moralizing digressions. ¹² However, he makes no material change to the description of Lucinius’s education. It is this Old French description which I wish to focus upon here, starting from the premise that lohannis has a literary as well as a professional interest in concentrating upon his young hero’s education, and that this intent is reflected by his translator. I wish to argue, that, far from simply offering us a description of education which is padded out by well-worn adages or by realistic glimpses into the medieval schoolroom (although neither of these aspects is without a degree of interest), lohannis and Herbert use the issue of the hero’s education to anchor the notions of learning and reading firmly in the frame of this roman à tiroirs, providing the specular context necessary to an understanding of the stories that are to be incorporated into it.