L’intertextualité dans Le Roman de la Dame à la Licorne: du pastiche de la matière de Bretagne au revival courtois

Abstract This paper, focusing on the Roman de la Dame à la Licorne et du Beau Chevalier , tackles the question of its use of intertextuality. This romance, a patchwork in which nothing – from its broader narrative to its very words – is original, has often been criticised for its banality. This paper contests such a judgment and analyses the working of this poetics of intertextuality. Beginning with what makes it possible, it brings out two writing principles which allow the Roman to incorporate so many quotations while still remaining coherent: the episodic nature of the plot and its pastiche of the Matter of Britain. This pervasive pastiche causes the reader to have a constant sense of déjà vu, an intertextual vertigo brought about by how many possible hypotexts the Roman has. Hence the idea that the Roman uses intertextuality, not out of clumsiness, but in order to plunge the reader into this state: there is an aesthetic purpose of intertextuality. All the more so as these hypotexts are sometimes suggested only to be distorted by the Roman , in some cases to a purely parodic end, in others to serve an ideological discourse about courtly love that aims at updating it.