Loire Poetics

This book offers the first comprehensive study of the generation of Latin poets active around 1100—Hildebert of Lavardin, Marbod of Rennes, Geoffrey of Reims, and Baudri of Bourgueil—situating them as a coherent and self-aware movement at the threshold of the twelfth-century renaissance. Positioned between earlier traditions and later figures such as Peter Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux, these authors emerge as both formative teachers and critical interlocutors. The study identifies shared linguistic and poetic practices shaped by the dialectical methods associated with Berengar of Tours, reconstructing a poetics that informed the teaching of grammar and poetry and aids in the attribution of anonymous texts. At the same time, it delineates regional and intellectual divergences, notably between the Loire schools, the Holy Roman Empire, and Reims. Grounded in extensive scholarship yet moving beyond author-focused studies, the book reframes this generation’s decisive role in Latin and emerging vernacular literary cultures.

“Loire Poetics is an ambitious study that will be indispensable for all students of European poetry (not just Latin poetry) from the central Middle Ages. It presents bold arguments about the character of a new poetics emergent from the late eleventh century. The author's claims, while expansive, are built patiently from probing discussion of several dozen individual poems.

By choosing to publish his monumental study in English, the author performs an important additional service, since the impressive artistry of the poets at issue—the giants Hildebert of Lavardin, Marbod of Rennes, and Baudri of Bourgueil, but also less familiar figures, such as Geoffrey of Reims—remains somewhat underserved by  anglophone scholarship. 

Professor Verbaal’s expert guidance should attract new students to these authors through his contextualized close readings and accompanying translations. The latter are often inspired, revealing a rare sensitivity to the idiom, tone, and pace of the originals.”

–Christopher A. Jones (The Ohio State University)

Introduction

1. A poem and its world: Mapping poetry
 1. How to Read a Poem
 2. Preliminary Poetics
 3. Some Poets and some Poems

2. Poets on poets: Poetical criticism
 1. Hildebert of Lavardin: A “Priestly” View
 2. Geoffrey of Reims: An Emulator’s View
 3. Marbod of Rennes: An Existential View
 4. Literary Criticism around 1100

3. Poems to poems: poetical renewal
 1. Masters in poetry: models
 2. Masters in poetry: teachers
 3. Masters in poetry: pupils
 4. Masters of poetry: renewal
 5. Masters of poetry: contrasts

4. Poems with a Past: Loire classicism
 1. Classical Antiquity at the Loire
 2. Using the Classics: Marbod and Sigebert
 3. Re-writing the Classics
 4. Re-voicing the Classics
 5. Re-viving the Classics
 6. Re-telling the Classics
 7. Conclusion: Being a Classic

5. Poems and Poetry: Toward a Loire Poetics 
 1. Deconstruction and interconnection: the writing of verse
 2. Creating consistency: style and genres
 3. Conceiving fictionality: topics and textual realities
 4. Loire poetics: teaching poetry in poetry
 5. Conclusion: A Poetics of the Loire

6. Poems and their Families: Poetic contamination
 1. Books, Booklets, Collections: Baudri
 2. Composing Books: Hildebert
 3. Decomposing books: Marbod
 4. Poetry books
 5. Conclusion

7. Poets and their Worlds: historical background of the new poetics
 1. Colouring poetics
 2. Political Poetics
 3. Silent poetics
 4. Armed poetics
 5. Conclusion

8. Conclusion

Appendices
Bibliography