François Villon Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Barbara N. Sargent-Baur

Critical Essay by Barbara N. Sargent-Baur

SOURCE: "Communication and Implied Audience(s) in Villon's Testament," in Neophilologus, Vol. LXXVI, No. 1, January, 1992, pp. 35-40.

In the following essay, Sargent-Baur finds Villon addressing three separate audiences in the Testament and examines the various personas that Villon presents to this "plural audience."

By now, most careful readers are aware that behind every speech act as preserved in writing there is a speaking voice, an implied or explicit "I" from whom the text stems. This applies, as well, to compositions conceived as written from the outset. In the case of the Testament of François Villon the "I" of the narrator is very prominent indeed, to the point where the whole work takes on the character of a dramatic monologue with interspersed dialogue and debate. The personality and rôle of this narrator, his relations with the implied author and the historical author, have been much discussed, over a long period...
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