Paul Zumthor, CQ (5 August 1915 – 11 January 1995)[1][2] was a medievalist, literary historian, and linguist. He was a Swiss from Geneva.
He studied in Paris with Gustave Cohen and worked on French etymology with Walther von Wartburg.[3] In studying medieval French poetry, he formulated the concept of mouvance (variability).[4][5] He also emphasised "vocality" in medieval poetry, the place of the human voice.[6]
He held two major professorial positions at the University of Amsterdam from 1952 and at the Université de Montréal from 1971 to 1980, when he later became emeritus. In 1992, he was made a Knight of the National Order of Quebec.
Zumthor was elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1969, this was changed into a foreign membership in 1971.[7]
Within J. M. Coetzee's novel Elizabeth Costello, Zumthor is quoted at length by a character Emmanuel Egudu. Coetzee describes Zumthor as "a man from the snowy wastes of Canada, the great scholar of orality Paul Zumthor."[8]