Professor Catherine Leglu
Responsibilities
Head of Department, Modern Languages and European Studies.
Teaching
FR1IFC, Introduction to French Culture; FR2SCR French Literature Onscreen; FR3JC Jean Cocteau: Films and Narratives. Contributor to ML2MRL Love in Medieval and Renaissance Literature and ML3CW Cinemas of the World; FR3L6, Part 3 French language.
Areas of Interest
I am a medievalist specialising in Occitan and French literature, and former Director of the University of Reading's Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies.
I am a former member of the international committee of the 'Association internationale d'études occitanes' (AIEO) www.aieo.org
My PhD was in the satirical tradition of troubadour poetry. My current research focuses on translation and adaptation of Latin didactic texts into the vernacular, as well as on word-and-image relations. I have published on Old Occitan satirical and moralising verse, Old French lyric poetry (pastourelle and chansons de toile), and Middle French romance and didactic texts. My recent research has been on issues of multilingualism in French, Occitan and Catalan literature, as well as on the vernacular translation and adaptation of Latin didactic texts (e.g. Middle French versions of Valerius Maximus' Facta et dicta memorabilia). My current project, initially funded by the Leverhulme Trust (2011-13) is an edition of the Occitan version of a fourteenth-century universal history told largely through the medium of genealogies and images (British Library Egerton 1500), find out more by visiting the egerton 1500 blog
Postgraduate supervision
I have advised postgraduate research on medieval heresy in the Languedoc, tax records in Occitan-speaking regions, as well as on nineteenth-century Occitan writers.
Enquiries are welcome concerning postgraduate research in any of the following areas: word and image relations in poetry and didactic literature, multilingualism, hybridity, vernacular book cultures, translation, book culture, education, performance, vernacular readers, heresy and authority, adaptation (medieval and modern).
Research groups / Centres
Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies
For details of Reading Medieval Studies click here:
Authored books
Samson and Delilah in Medieval Insular French Texts and Images: Translation and Adaptation (forthcoming)
Multilingualism and Mother Tongue in medieval French, Occitan and Catalan narratives. Penn State University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-271-03672-4. http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-03672-4.html
Between Sequence and Sirventes: Aspects of Parody in the Troubadour Lyric (Society for French Studies/ European Humanities Research Board, ‘Legenda’, 2000)
Edited volumes
Edited with Rebecca Rist and Claire Taylor, The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2013), ISBN 978-1-40-825550-6
Edited with Stephen J. Milner, The Erotics of Consolation: Desire and Distance in the Middle Ages, New Middle Ages series (New York – Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan USA, 2008), viii+ 241 p. ISBN -13: 978-1-4039-7619-2
Authored chapter: ‘Maternal Consolatio in Antoine de La Sale’s Reconfort de Madame de Fresne’ (pp.185-203).
Edited with Marcus Bull, The World of Eleanor of Aquitaine: Literature and Society in Southern France in the eleventh and thirteenth centuries (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2005) (50% editorial work and co-authored introduction)
Edition
Simone de Beauvoir, Les Bouches inutiles: Edition with notes and introduction (Bristol Classical Press/ Duckworth, 2001)
Publications
2019
- Leglu, C. (2019) Illicit speech, unsayable bodies, and eighteenth-century medievalism: "Nocrion: conte allobroge". Forum for Modern Language Studies. ISSN 1471-6860 (In Press)
2018
- Leglu, C. (2018) ‘Conpains, vois tu ce que je voi?’: gendered encounters in the Three Living and Three Dead. Reading Medieval Studies, 44. pp. 1-20. ISSN 0950-3129 (In Press)
- Léglu, C. (2018) Samson and Delilah in medieval insular French: translation and adaptation. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Pivot, Switzerland. ISBN 9783319906379 doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90638-6
2017
- Léglu, C. (2017) Giving voice to Samson and Delilah: troubadour and monastic songs of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In: Butterfield, A., Hope , H. and Souleau, P. (eds.) Performing Medieval Text. Legenda. Modern Humanities Research Association, Oxford, pp. 39-52. ISBN 9781910887134
- Leglu, C. (2017) The 'Vida' of Queen Fredegund in 'Tote Listoire de France': vernacular translation and genre in thirteenth-century French and Occitan literature. Nottingham French Studies, 56 (1). pp. 98-112. ISSN 0029-4586 doi: https://doi.org/10.3366/nfs.2017.0170
- Leglu, C. (2017) Ambivalent visual representations of Robert the Wise in Occitan illustrated texts. Italian Studies, 72 (2). pp. 192-204. ISSN 0075-1634 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00751634.2017.1307556
2016
- Leglu, C. (2016) Reading Abbey’s Anglo-Norman French translation of the Bible (London, British Library Royal MS 1 C III). Reading Medieval Studies, 42. pp. 139-156. ISSN 0950-3129
- Leglu, C. (2016) Toulouse. In: Wallace, D. (ed.) Europe: A Literary History, 1348-1415. Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN 9780198735359
2015
- Leglu, C. (2015) The Devil’s Daughters and a question of translation between Occitan and Anglo-Norman French: ‘De las .vii. filhas del diable’ (British Library Add. MS 17920). Revue d'Etudes d'Oc: La France Latine, 160. pp. 93-123. ISSN 0222-0326
2014
- Leglu, C. (2014) Façonner sa dame: amour et idolâtrie. Revue des langues romanes, 118 (2). pp. 405-428. ISSN 0223-3711
- Leglu, C., Rist, R. and Taylor, C., eds. (2014) The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade: a sourcebook. Routledge, London and New York, pp242. ISBN 9781408255506
- Leglu, C. (2014) "Just as fragments are part of a vessel": a translation into medieval Occitan of the life of Alexander the Great. Florilegium: Journal of the Canadian Society of Medievalists/Société canadienne des médiévistes, 31. pp. 55-76. ISSN 2369-7180 doi: https://doi.org/10.3138/flor.31.03
2013
- Leglu, C. (2013) A genealogy of the kings of England in papal Avignon: British Library, Egerton MS. 1500. Electronic British Library Journal, 2013. Article 18. ISSN 1478-0259
- Leglu, C. (2013) Vernacular poetry and the spiritual Franciscans of the Languedoc: the poems of Raimon de Cornet. In: Roach, A. P. and Simpson, J. R. (eds.) Heresy and the Making of European Culture: Medieval and Modern Perspectives, edited by Andrew P. Roach andJ ames R. Simpson. Ashgate, Farnham, pp. 165-184. ISBN 9781472411815
- Leglu, C. (2013) The 'child of Babylon' and the problem of paternity in Medieval French Alexander romances. Reading Medieval Studies, 39. pp. 63-74. ISSN 0950-3129
2012
- Leglu, C. (2012) Translating Lucretia: word, image and 'ethical non-indifference' in Simon de Hesdin's translation of Valerius Maximus's 'Facta et dicta memorabilia'. In: Campbell, E. and Mills, R. (eds.) Rethinking Medieval Translation. Ethics, Politics, Theory. Boydell and Brewer, Woodbridge, Suffolk, pp. 61-83. ISBN 9781843843290
2011
- Leglu, C. (2011) L’amant tenu par la bride : Itinéraires d'un motif courtois chez Gaucelm Faidit et sur un coffret limousin. In: de Goustine, L. (ed.) Gaucelm Faidit: amours, voyages et débats. Cahiers de Carrefour Ventadour. Carrefour Ventadour, Moutiers-Ventadour, France, pp. 149-166. ISBN 9782916622040
- Leglu, C. (2011) Antoine de La Sale's 'La Sale': the cannonball and the prince's head. French Studies, 65 (2). pp. 143-155. ISSN 1468-2931 doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/fs/knq252
2010
- Leglu, C. E. (2010) Multilingualism and mother tongue in medieval French, Occitan, and Catalan narratives. Penn State University Press, USA, pp216. ISBN 9780271036724
- Léglu, C. E. (2010) Cambra: desire and place in troubadour poetry and medieval Catalan narrative. Exemplaria, 22 (4). pp. 285-304. ISSN 1041-2573 doi: https://doi.org/10.1179/104125710X12730486676180
- Leglu, C. E., ed. (2010) Special issue of Reading medieval studies: first crusade historiography. Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies (University of Reading), UK.
- Leglu, C. E. (2010) A new Medea in late medieval French narratives. In: Bartel, H. and Simon, A. (eds.) Unbinding Medea: interdisciplinary approaches to a classical myth from antiquity to the 21st century. Legenda, Oxford, UK. ISBN 9781906540531
2009
- Leglu, C. and Le Saux, F. (2009) Reading medieval studies. Reading Medieval Studies, 35. University of Reading, Reading.
2008
- Leglu, C. (2008) Maternal consolatio in Antoine de La Sale's reconfort de Madame de Fresne. In: Leglu, C. and Milner, S. (eds.) The erotics of consolation: desire and distance in the late middle ages. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, pp. 185-203. ISBN 9781403976192
- Leglu, C. and Milner, S. (2008) The erotics of consolation: desire and distance in the late middle ages. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, pp252. ISBN 9781403976192
- Leglu, C. (2008) Languages in conflict in Toulouse: las leys d'amors. Modern Language Review, 103 (2). pp. 383-396. ISSN 0026-7937
- Leglu, C. (2008) Rebuilding the tower of Babel in Girart de Roussillon. In: Ailes, M., Le Saux, F. and Lawrence, A. (eds.) Medieval historical discourses: essays in honour of Professor Peter S. Noble. Reading Medieval Studies, XXXIV. University of Reading, Reading, pp. 137-152. ISBN 9780704998919
2007
- Leglu, C. (2007) Between hell and a fiery mountain: Antoine de La Sale's ascent of Vulcano. Studies in Travel Writing, 11 (2). pp. 109-126. ISSN 1755-7550 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13645145.2007.9634824
- Leglu, C. (2007) L'art roman et la poésie occitane: une question de traduction. In: de Goustine, L. (ed.) Le Troubadour Marcabru et ses contemporains. Cahiers de Carrefour Ventadour, Moutiers-Ventadour, pp. 113-129. ISBN 9782916622002
- Leglu, C. (2007) Nourishing lineage in Coudrette's Roman de Mélusine ou Histoire de Lusignan (1401). In: McNeill, I. and Stephens, B. (eds.) Transmissions: essays in French literature, thought and cinema. Modern French identities. Volume 51.. Peter Lang , Oxford, pp. 25-43. ISBN 9783039107346
- Leglu, C. (2007) Place and movement in the old French Chanson de Toile. Parergon, 24 (1). pp. 21-39. ISSN 1832-8334 doi: https://doi.org/10.1353/pgn.2007.0047
Selected publications before 2007:
- ‘Nourishing lineage in the early French versions of the Romance of Melusine’, Medium Ævum 74.1 (2005) 83-97
- ‘Memory, Teaching, and Performance: The Two Versions of Peire de Corbian’s Thezaur’, in Études de langue et de littérature médiévales offertes à Peter T. Ricketts, edited by Ann Buckley and Dominique Billy (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), pp. 281-92
- ‘Vernacular Poems and Inquisitors in Languedoc and Champagne, c.1242-1249’, Viator, (Journal of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at UCLA), 33 (2002) 117-32
- ‘Did Women Perform Satirical Poetry? Trobairitz and Soldaderas in Medieval Occitan Poetry’, Forum for Modern Language Studies, 37 (2001) 15-25
- ‘Tearful Performance: When Troubadours Weep’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 51.4 (2000) [2001] 495-504
- ‘Satirical and moralising poetry’, chapter in The Troubadours: An Introduction, edited by Sarah Kay and Simon Gaunt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp.47-65.
- ‘Myths of exile and the Albigensian Crusade’, New Readings, 4 (1998) 7-22
- ‘Identifying the toza in Occitan pastorela and Old French pastourelle’, French Studies, 52.2 (1998) 129-41
- ‘Defamation in the Troubadour Sirventes: Legislation and Lyric Poetry’, Medium Ævum, 46 (1997) 28-41
- ‘Negative self-promotion: the troubadour sirventes joglaresc’, in The Court and Cultural Diversity: Selected Papers from the Eighth Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society, The Queen’s University of Belfast, 26 July-1 August 1995, edited by Evelyn Mullally and John Thompson (Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer, 1997), pp.47-56
- ‘A Reading of Troubadour Insult Songs: The Comunals cycle’, Reading Medieval Studies, 22 (1996) 63-84
- ‘La place du sermon dans le discours satirique de Marcabru’, Actes du IVe Congrès International de l’AIEO, Vitoria-Gasteiz, 22-28 août 1993, 2 volumes, edited by Ricardo Cierbide (Vitoria-Gasteiz: Cierbide, 1995) I, 173-187
Qualifications:
BA Hons in French and Spanish (Cambridge, 1991), PhD (Cambridge, 1995).
I have held posts at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, rue d'Ulm, Paris (Maîtresse de langues, 1994-95), Queen's University, Belfast (1995-97) and the University of Bristol (1997-2007).
About French Studies at the School of Languages and European Studies