This collaborative anthology of medieval debate poetry is impressive in range and very well put together. The six editors have cast their nets into no less than nine western European languages, from which they have collected forty-six poems dating from the twelfth to the fifteenth century.

The volume’s general introduction by Jörg Fichte surveys the Streitgedicht’s earliest antecedents (as far back as Mesopotamia in the third millennium BCE!), then sketches its affinities with the debating practices of medieval schools and universities, and finally outlines its thematic and dialogic contours.

Distancing themselves from earlier literary historians 1, the editors refuse to treat the Streitgedicht as a fixed and readily definable literary genre. Instead, they view it as a transferable “Texttypus” that shows up in various genres. Fichte distinguishes two types of debate poems within the anthology (pp. xviii–xxv). The first type features disputes on spiritual matters premised on a vertical value scale: it can be seen from the very outset that one contestant holds the ethical or theological upper hand and that his or her adversary is in the wrong. These might be called mock debates, since we can surmise all along that the morally upright contestant will be the winner. Debates of the second type, which deal with worldly concerns, unfold in more horizontal fashion. They let the adversaries face off on fairly even terms. In such contests a case can be made for either side (at least with a humorous wink), so the outcome does not loom from the start as foregone conclusion. Debates of this type are numerous and can be sorted into four general categories: social rank rivalries, contests of artistic skill, disputes about love and seduction, political controversies, etc.

The poems compiled by the editors illustrate the Streitgedicht’s compatibility with many kinds of medieval verse forms. The poem labels found in manuscripts intermingle, resulting in noticeable overlaps: conflictus, altercatio, causa, dialogus, tenso, partimen, joc partit, jeu-parti, disputa, desputizon, débat, contrasto, lauda, pastorela. Acknowledging the mobility of genres, the anthology includes debates ensconced in dream visions, in pastourelles, and in disputations between birds. Those are three relatively succinct forms of narrative. Although debates also arise in longer narrative poems and plays, the editors bring forward a single specimen: the famous “Fürstenlob” competition, a 400-line episode excerpted from the “Sängerkrieg” portion of the Wartburgkrieg poem, an episode whose participants are six poet-musicians (Minnesingers).

Another demarcation line deserves to be drawn here, albeit the editors scarcely bring it up. When Minnesingers compete against one another, they do so in verses set to music. The same applies to troubadours and trouvères: their tensos and partimens are debates performed as songs. Pastourelles, too, often possess melodies.2 It would therefore be appropriate to draw a rudimentary distinction between debates that maintain a unity of text with melody and those that rely exclusively on spoken speech or speech that is read (whether out loud or silently).3

The volume is organized as a series of nine linguistically separate sections. The first, with an introduction by Stoltz, houses Latin texts. Poems in Romance languages come next, with a six-part introduction by Friedlein and Neumeister. They arrive in this order: Occitan, Catalan, Spanish, Galician-Portuguese, French, and Italian. The volume’s final sections are the German debates, introduced by Wenzel and Runow, and the English ones, introduced by Fichte.

All introductory essays are substantial and informative. Each outlines well the literary traditions and cultural contexts belonging to its flock of poems. The four essays also pay proper attention to relevant verse debates that remain outside the anthology. In addition, every poem receives its own preface, which imparts detailed information and solid interpretation. There we also obtain references to prior editions. The Latin, German, and English prefaces methodically list their manuscript sources as well. However, prefaces in the other six language sections do not supply similar listings. The meagerness of manuscript information occasions, here and there, some small quibbles. For example, why does the preface for Elena y María not mention that the poem has been abridged by more than one half?4 Which of three Rutebeuf manuscripts do the editors have in mind for each emendation they make in the Desputizons dou Croisié et dou descroizié?5

Such tiny quibbles cannot tarnish the anthology’s achievements, which deserve strong applause. The editors handle their source texts with precision and care. Misprints are very rare.6 The facing-page translations are scrupulously clear, often unraveling difficult passages by means of paraphrase and expatiation. To be sure, such elucidating tactics come at a price: they can cause a deftly crafted stanza to lose its tautness in translation or, during a flyting contest, turn enigmatic slurs into humdrum abuse. Yet thanks to limpid renderings the original texts prove easier to decipher.

In short, we have here a well-balanced sampler collection of medieval Streitgedichte, accompanied by an ample up-to-date bibliography. The editors’ essays knit up together well, even as they focus on the specificities of each language’s debate corpus. This quite affordable volume is a most useful compendium for scholars as well as students.

Notes:
1 E.g. Hans Walther, Das Streitgedicht in der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, München 1920.
2 For the ways in which pastourelle duets influenced fourteenth-century motets and their polyphony, see Sylvia Huot, Polyphonic Poetry. The Old French Motet and its Literary Context, in: French Forum 14 (1989), pp. 261–278. For pastourelles in general, see William Paden’s comprehensive, multilingual anthology (original texts plus English translations): The Medieval Pastourelle, 2 v., New York 1987.
3 For the kinds of performance and reading practices to which debate poetry lent itself in fourteenth and fifteenth-century France, see Hélène Haug, La lecture des débats en moyen français. approches d’un jeu courtois, in: Le Moyen Age 122/2 (2016): 275–302.
4 An abridgement from 402 lines down to 187. Ramón Menéndez Pidal edited the complete version of Elena y María in Revista de Filología Española 1 (1914), pp. 52–96.
5 To be sure, a diligent reader may secure answers by consulting Michel Zink’s edition of Rutebeuf’s Œuvres complètes or, otherwise, by going online and examining the notes at the bottom of the web page: http://www.rutebeuf.be/pano/26_La_desputaison_du_croise_et_du_decroise.html.
6 I did spot a small error in Petrarch’s sonnet, “Che fai alma?” (p. 308). Line 10 should read: “ad alta voce, e’n vista asciutta et lieta.”