Biography

Born December 23 1903 (Tunis). Died 23 November 1997.

Education and professional career

  • 1923-1926 : Student at the École normale supérieure
  • 1926 : Agrégation in Grammar
  • 1927-1933 : Teacher at the Lycée de Tunis
  • 1933-1938 : Teacher at the Lycée d'Alger, lecturer at the Faculty of Letters
  • 1938 : Doctorat ès Lettres. Subject : Research on the Libro de buen amor by Juan Ruiz
  • 1938-1944 : Lecturer at the Dijon Faculty of Letters
  • 1939-1941 : Mobilized during WWII and interned in Switzerland from June 1940 to January 1941
  • 1944-1947 : Professor, Dijon Faculty of Literature
  • 1945-1948 : Member of the jury for the Agrégation de Grammaire (French grammar exam)
  • 1947-1974 : Professor at the Collège de France, holding the Chair in French Language and Literature of the Middle Ages. This chair succeeded that of Mario Roques (History of French Vocabulary, 1937-1946)
  • 1947 : Appointed Director of Studies in Romance Philology at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Études
  • 1947 : Appointed Director of the Société des Anciens Textes français
  • 1959 : Member of the Conseil de perfectionnement de l'Ecole des Chartes
  • 1961 : Member of CNRS Commission 23 (French linguistics and literary studies)
  • 1961 : Becomes director of the " Classiques Français du Moyen Âge" collection 
  • 1961 : Becomes editor of the journal Romania
  • 1962 : Member of the Executive Committee of the Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des textes, CNRS
  • 1962 : Member of the Commission des Atlas linguistiques, CNRS
  • 1962 : Member of the Scientific Council of Casa Velázquez
  • 1962 : Member of the Patronage Committee of Centre de philologie et de littératures romanes de Strasbourg

Awards and honors

  • 1939 : Prix Lagrange from the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres for his edition of the Bible du Seigneur de Berzé
  • 1954 : Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur
  • 1963 : Prix Lagrange from the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres for his edition of Jean Renart's novel, Guillaume de Dol
  • 1966 : Elected member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres on December 2 . His successor will be Michel Zink

Abstract

In the course of his lectures, Félix Lecoy has dealt with various aspects of medieval French literature. Picking up on research already carried out by Gaston Paris, he showed the extent to which themes from universal folklore, both Western and Eastern, were used. With fabliaux, collections of pious or profane tales, hagiographic narratives and novels such as those of Renart or Alexander, the French Middle Ages often provided the first elaborate versions of themes that can be traced back to earlier times. Some of these themes have even survived to the present day in literary texts and popular oral traditions.
As a text editor, Félix Lecoy has endeavored to provide the public, and students in particular, with accurate and easily accessible editions of important but hard-to-find medieval texts. In addition to his editing work, he has also written critical works and published numerous reviews.

Selected bibliography