Chapter 5. Meddling the Medieval: Caroline Bergvall and Erín Moure
Both Caroline Bergvall and Erín Moure produce contemporary innovative texts that re-frame medieval ones. Bergvall’s take on (‘meddling’ with) Chaucer, Meddle English, involves a recognition of the fluidity of Chaucer’s language that matches a contemporary slipperiness in linguistic matters. Humorous and performative, Bergvall negotiates contemporary issues of gender through transformation, and through an interlineal gloss on the original text within her poems. Moure, in O Cadoiro, plunges into the archive of medieval Portuguese troubadours with relish, but Derrida’s essay ‘Archive Fever’ serves as a minatory intertext. Moure recognizes that the incomplete archive is capable of generating philosophical questions about self and truth, as well as being the occasion for stunning innovative love lyrics and visual play (as in the book’s photographic plates of her treated texts).
For those who can buy the book, or order it for libraries,
here are the places
For further posts on the project as it lead up to the book see here.
