The self-conscious continuator: reflections on literary continuation in medieval romances and their manuscripts

Abstract

Medieval romance is characterised by its openness to rewriting, and the specific practice of literary continuation—extending unfinished works—has received considerable attention, albeit less so with regard to the anxieties felt by the authors of such narratives in undertaking their task. This article examines how continuators in Old French and Middle Dutch romances articulate their relationship to predecessor texts, arguing that continuation constitutes a distinct and especially self-conscious mode of rewriting. Focusing chiefly on prologues, epilogues and material transmission, the study revisits a range of French case studies—including the Continuations of Chrétien de Troyes’s Perceval, Chrétien’s Le Chevalier de la charrette and the Roman de la Rose—to analyse how their authors articulate the task of continuation, and compares these reflections in detail with similar, but less well-studied statements found in Middle Dutch works such as Reinaerts historie, Moriaen, Walewein and Parthonopeus van Bloys. Across both linguistic traditions, continuators variously obscure their authorial presence, criticise unfinished sources, emphasise patronal authority or claim legitimacy through completion, revealing acute awareness of their inevitable comparison with the originating text and/or author. Manuscript evidence further complicates these authorial concerns, often demonstrating strong audience acceptance of continuations despite visible hierarchies of prestige. By bringing French and Dutch material into dialogue, this article identifies shared strategies and pressures that hint at a broader, transnational medieval poetics of continuation.