SOURCE: Sinnreich-Levi, Deborah M. “Medicine and Music, Hygiene and Poetry: L'art de dictier Revisited.” Romance Languages Annual 10, no. 1 (1999): 164-67.

In this essay, Sinnreich-Levi investigates Deschamps's view, expressed in L'Art de dictier, that poetry has therapeutic or “medicinal” qualities.

Medicine and Music, Hygiene and Poetry: L'art De Dictier Revisited

In 1392, Eustache Deschamps produced the very first ars poetica in French, L'art de dictier, whose stated purpose is to teach the reader how to compose poetry and songs. L'art de dictier offers valuable insights into the mind of a successful and prolific medieval poet including the purpose of hearing or reading poetry, but many readers who have not correctly situated this text have had difficulty with it, for L'art de dictier is incomplete and seemingly confusing or contradictory. Deschamps classes poetry as a variety of music and, recognizing music's healing qualities caused by the pleasure it engenders, adds peculiarly medieval...