Buch, Englisch, Band 56, 282 Seiten
Reihe: Analecta Romanica
Medieval Conversations with the Literary Past
Buch, Englisch, Band 56, 282 Seiten
Reihe: Analecta Romanica
ISBN: 978-3-465-02876-5
Verlag: Vittorio Klostermann
Fundamentally, the writers in this study find the linearity that structures time as well as writing to be a highly problematic constraint. While undeniably critical to our understanding, linearity tends to diminish the rich ambiguities that give meaning to all we experience. Building on such insights, these writers focus on literary issues defined by time - such as authority, memory, perception, and creativity - in order to probe how literature might avoid static memorializing and instead creatively invigorate memory.
To examine these ideas, the study develops a model based on rhetorical and semiotic principles. In the first of three parts, the rhetorical principle of the enthymeme and a prefatory topos, the "translatio studii et imperii", are explored. Part two semiotically analyzes different manifestations of the narrator as writer and reader as well as how these narrators are mirrored in different characters. Finally, part three traces tensions between historiographical and fictional visions in three narratives of the 14th century, while mapping out literary theoretical statements on time, the metaphorical, and creativity.