Alvaro Barbieri

Corpi eroici: l’iper-fisicità guerriera nella letteratura antico-francese

Endowed with superpowers and capable of extraordinary exploits, formidable feats and decisive masterstrokes, the hyperbolic bodies of great martial champions are not only terrifying instruments of war and death, enhanced by shiny and thunderous iron weapons, but, in heroic narratives, they are also conceived as forums for the convergence and representation of ideological values and symbolic stakes that play a crucial role in the construction of meaning. With its exuberant and excessive proportions, the body of elite fighters becomes the physical correlatives of démesure and hybris epitomising the very essence of epic hyperbole. Framed against the backdrop of traditional archetypes, the current contribution focuses on different depictions of corporeality in Old French literature.

Keywords: Epic hyperbolic bodies; Effictio; Heroic portraiture; Martial gestures; Old French chivalric literature.