« Half dicht, half prose gheordineert » : vers et prose de moyen français en moyen néerlandais

Abstract

In both French-speaking and Dutch-speaking literary cultures of the late Middle Ages, competition between poets produced a collective poetic expertise. To what extent, then, can such competition be identified across the two cultures, in translations of verse or prosimetrum compositions from Middle French into Middle Dutch? An examination of the Dutch translations reveals that verse is both a means to knowledge and an object of knowledge, in the target culture as well as the source culture. The diversity of translations shows that verse is not only a system that translators attempt to master, but also a formal supplement in ways that are unavailable to prose.