Fama et les preux : nom et renom à la fin du Moyen Âge

Fama and the knights. Name and Fame at the End of the Middle Ages. - This essay examines the new relation created at the end of the Middle Ages by the following three terms : renown, memory and writing. Basing herself on the importance of the lists of names that present simultaneously lists of fame, the author focusses on nine knights in particular, and on nine muses, as well as on the play between these related lists. The author thus shows that literary fame can become a possible substitute for nobility of birth. This is clearly indicated by the literary tombs of writers in French. The author finds evidence for the above statements in the mutation of sensitivity demonstra ted in the change that the allegory of fame undergoes. Fama passes from the figure of a bird (which harks back to the aesthetics of the voice), to the figure of the horse : hence, Pegasus, an image that designates this new insistence advocated by the aesthetics of the imprint, and ultimately of the writing.Cerquiglini-Toulet Jacqueline. Fama et les preux : nom et renom à la fin du Moyen Âge. In: Médiévales, n°24, 1993. La renommée, sous la direction de Claude Gauvard . pp. 35-44