The first epigraph to this chapter mirrors in traditional language Toute Belle’s rise as apprentice love poet. Her progress towards independence in Machaut’s twin arts of poetry and love demonstrates successful completion of her apprenticeship. Indeed, she finally surpasses her master in the art of love while teaching him to remember and practice what he teaches in the art of poetry; as poet, she begins to write independently. In effect, in the Voir Dit she becomes a model for all those apprentices and rewriters alike who follow in Machaut’s wake and practice his art.

The second epigraph, from Nicole Oresme’s translation of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics,points to the uncertainty that Machaut and his epigones confront as poets. In love, the uncertainty motif is obvious throughout Machaut’s oeuvre. In broadening the subject to include philosophical, moral, and social issues, as Machaut does in the Confort d’ami, quandaries arise when neither faith nor mathematics produces Oresme’s persuasion. Machaut consequently turns to rethorique and musique for his demonstracion. In this chapter, I examine some works that follow the model of this foremost poet and premier rethorique of his time after he passed away. One might say that these poets are Toute Belle’s alter egos.

Contextualization

Poets in Machaut’s time evince ‘an increasingly intellectualized vernacular love poetry’ as well as a growing awareness of ‘the distinction we should acknowledge between intellectual context and what poetry is doing on its own literary terms’.This ‘contextualisation de la poésie lyrique’is evident in a number of dits written after Machaut. Using subtlety such as he displays in the last part of the Voir Dit, they turn more and more to the broader context in which he treats ideal love in the Confort d’ami.