Ebook: A Study of Aimon de Varennes’ Florimont

This thesis offers an intertextual examination of the twelfth-century romance, Florimont, by Aimon de Varennes. It considers the disparity between current knowledge of the text and its dissemination during the Middle Ages, revealing a failure of critics to appreciate the significance of re-writing as a medieval practice. This provides a framework for the study o f Florimont, which uses the work of Douglas Kelly on the process of medieval composition to analyse Florimont's relationship with important contemporary texts.

Progressive levels of rewriting techniques are seen in relation to these textual models. Chapter 2 explores the relatively straightforward emulation of a popular romance (Le Roman d'Alexandre), showing how Aimon benefits by deliberately positioning his text as prehistory to its famous model, whilst also engaging with the problems of romancing the life of a historical figure. Chapter 3 moves on to explore the relationship with Partonopeus de Blois, discovering a more complex use of rewriting, which engages critically with its model. This reveals Aimon's rewriting strategies as a conscious commentary on medieval composition, an idea explored further in Chapter 4. Here the fusion of two models (Le Roman d'Alexandre and Partonopeus de Blois) provides opportunities to play texts off against each other and to exploit the resulting effects. This process is analysed in detail in the final chapter, which explores Aimon's combination of elements from Partonopeus, Chretien de Troyes' Cliges and the Roman d 'Eneas in one key scene in the romance.

This analysis gives us a fresh understanding of the romance, forcing us to re- evaluate its position in our understanding of the Old French canon, and opening up the possibility for further appreciation both of this text and of its relationship with previous and later works.