Paratext, Ambiguity, and Interpretive Foreclosure in Manuscripts of Walter of Châtillon’s Alexandreis

Ten lines of summary verse capitula precede each book of Walter of Châtillon’s Alexandreis in many surviving manuscripts. But a substantial number carry as well a competing set of prose argumenta that convey a markedly different sense of the work’s structure. This article explores the richly varied mise-en-page of this alternative summary. It is argued that such details of layout often attenuate a clear sense of the authoritative status of one apparatus over the other, and that this instability impinges in turn upon key issues for the interpretation of the poem as a whole.