Structures, délimitation et éléments rhétoriques et stylistiques dans le prologue au Bestiaires d'Amour de Richard de Fournival

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to bring out and depict the various rhetoric and style elements in Richard de Fournival's Bestiaire d'Amour prologue, also dealing with the question of marking off the boundaries of such a literary excerpt, both formally and semantically, as the Bestiaire d'Amour itself represents a special, innovative work which requires a specific introduction, too. Far from the previous medieval bestiaries and other similar compositions whose incipit, if existent, usually focused either on the divine invocation or likely kept up to feudal bonds, our prologue is built upon a coalescence of religious, artistic, moral, amatory and military values, not to mention vassal relationships. The whole is rightly structured by means of several assets and techniques dating back to classical Rhetoric but kept alive in Middle Ages as they were widely implemented in literary compositions.