Speech, Plants, and Precious Objects: Tropes of Interpolation in Medieval French and Occitan Literature

This article argues that thirteenth- and fourteenth-century French and Occitan authors and manuscript makers used recurring tropes — texts as speech, plants, and precious objects — to conceptualize the act of interpolation and, more broadly, vernacular textuality. These figurative frameworks allowed authors and manuscript makers to articulate how texts related to their environments, to other texts, and to the people who produced, transmitted, and received them. The speech trope emphasized enunciation and authority, the plant trope modeled textual integration through metaphors of grafting and growth, and the precious object trope framed texts as crafted and valuable, underscoring authorial labor. Through close readings of works by Baudouin de Condé, Guyart des Moulins, Matfre Ermengaud, Jean Froissart, and others, the article shows that interpolation served not just as a compositional technique but as a means of theorizing literature's materiality, transmission, and relation to knowledge. In doing so, it proposes an ecological approach to medieval textuality grounded in figuration, networks, and situated practice.