The classic study of the famous French-Canadian medievalist Paul Zumthor is devoted to the analysis of medieval French literature as a single and integral poetic system. Using the achievements of structuralist poetics of the 1970s, the author identifies general patterns of this system and outlines the stages of its evolution, while revising many stereotypes of traditional medieval studies. In terms of the abundance of material and the breadth of its coverage, the book is a genuine encyclopedia of medieval poetry in France - from the first cantilenes to the exquisite experiments of writers at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries.