The State of Medieval Studies in Occitan and French Literature

William D. Paden, Northwestern University

New work in medieval Occitan and French literature has provided better answers to some old questions and has raised other questions that had not been asked before. These developments relate in various ways to the "New Philology" that was trumpeted in the decade of the 1990s. Speaking more generally, the influence of changes in our present-day outlook is palpable in some areas of recent work but less so in others. I shall address three themes that I consider pressing: women, Arabs, and manuscripts, and end with reflections on the concept of the edition. I shall of course be highly selective and guided by my own too limited acquaintance with the range of ongoing work.