Bédier, Joseph

(1863-1938)

   medievalist

   Born in Paris, Joseph Bédier, who would contribute valuable research to the study of medieval literature, taught from 1880 to 1903 at the university of Freiburg, switzerland, and in France at the University of Caen and the École normale supérieure. From 1903 to 1936 he was professor at the collège de France and, in 1920, was elected to the Académie Française. Bédier's first major scholarly work was Les Fabliaux, études de littérature populaire et d'histoire littéraire du moyen âge (1893). In this work he described the origins of the fabliau (short comic stories) in 13th-century French society. This study also established his reputation as a leading medievalist. His next book, Le Roman de Tristan et Iseult (1900), made him a world-famous writer. It was considered to be a masterpiece of French prose. In 1902, Bédier published Le Roman de Tristan par Thomas (2 volumes, 1902-05), considered one of the most important contributions to the field of medieval literary studies. In it, the author demonstrated the single original source for the many Tristan legends. Bédier also wrote a groundbreaking four-volume study of old French medieval epics, Les Légendes épiques (1908-13), which became the definitive work in that field. His scholarship culminated in his critical study Le Chanson de Roland (1922), in which he produced a modern French translation of the 12th-century version of the legend of the medieval hero Roland. Additionally, Bédier published Histoire illustrée de la littérature française (1923-24).