Education
He studied in Paris with Gustave Cohen, and worked on French etymology with Walther von Wartburg.
He studied in Paris with Gustave Cohen, and worked on French etymology with Walther von Wartburg.
He was Swiss-born, from Geneva. In studying medieval French poetry, he formulated the concept of mouvance (variability). He also emphasised "vocality" in medieval poetry, the place of the human voice.
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 became emeritus.
Within J. M. Coetzee"s novel Elizabeth Costello, Zumthor is quoted at length by a character Emmanuel Egudu. Coetzee writes of Zumthor as "a man from the snowy wastes of Canada, the great scholar of orality Paul Zumthor.".