HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

400 PETER AINSWORTHand 1170), the Roman de Thèbes aimed to impart to its aristocraticpublic a not inconsiderable part of the classical narrative heritage:“Their authors are clerks who declare their intent to make accessibleto laymen ignorant of Latin a knowledge to which they wouldotherwise have no means of access”. 46 Their intentions are, thus,both didactic and scholarly. If the Enéas author occasionally goes tothe extent of translating his source word for word, his relationshipwith it is often much more casual than this. Yet the Enéas is notdevoid of structure: A. Petit sees in it a balanced whole involvingthree major sections in a ratio of 1:2:1 (escape and voyage, the themeof the wanderer and his quest; the war undertaken by the hero toobtain both fief and wife; the fulfilment of his destiny). 47 Within theselarger divisions one can detect the presence—at a distance from oneanother or at much shorter intervals—of parallel or symmetrical narrativeunits, “conferring upon the narrative a binary rhythm whichmultiplies the effects of echo and antithesis”. In this light one mayusefully compare the love of Lavinia and Enéas with the tragic passionof Dido:Thus the loves of Dido, guilty and sensual widow, are set against thoseof Lavinia, the young inexperienced girl. These two sentimental episodes,marking two stages in the destiny of Enéas, are set in opposition toone another and echo one another from either end of the romance. 48Inasmuch as it draws together love and prowess within the contextof narrative fiction, this occasionally scrupulous adaptation of Vergil’sAeneid perhaps deserves to be known as ‘the first French novel’. Butthe (ever more elaborate) portrayal of love also finds expression in theThèbes and the Troie. Michel Zink summarizes the essential elements:All of these authors, abundantly and indulgently, depict the first stirringsof love, the disarray of a virginal heart as yet slow to recognizeits presence, the secrets confided to a mother or wet nurse which permitits identification, the self questioning, the timidity of the lovers,the recourse to ruses, and all the concealments, audacious initiatives,betrayals and confessions. 4946Le Roman d’Enéas, ed. Aimé Petit, in Lettres Gothiques, gen. ed. M. Zink (Paris,1997), 7; my translation.47Le Roman d’Enéas, ed. Petit, 12.48Le Roman d’Enéas, ed. Petit, 13–14; my translation.49Zink (1992), 135–36; my translation.