Paroles gelées

This article begins by arguing that medieval texts were by nature the product of collaboration due to their conditions of production and the concept of translatio, which required writers in the Middle Ages to derive “authority” from their predecessors. Next, the article analyses how Robert de Boron modified Le Conte du graal in order to turn it into a Christian tale. Rather than enriching interpretations of the work, his rewriting misled readers for centuries to interpret the grail in Chrétien de Troyes? text as a holy object. With this process in mind, the article defines a “collaborative lens” as the filter by which the perspective of a single author is imposed on a text with multiple authors. It argues that the collaborative lens not only corrupts our understanding of the “original” work, but also affects its future reinterpretations. Comparing medieval translatio to current-day intertextuality, it demonstrates that they both call into question dominant notions of “originality.” Finally, it draws on scholarship by Howard Bloch, Michelle Freeman and Zrinka Stahuljak in order to situate the “collaborative lens” within existing frameworks for “genealogies” in Medieval Literature.