Lars Boje Mortensen
S. 3 - 45
doi:
10.1553/medievalworlds_no5_2017s3
Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
Abstract:
The article presents a new model for understanding the sudden success of prose in four literatures: Greek, Latin, French and Old Norse. Through comparison and quantitative observations, and by focusing on the success of prose rather than its invention, it is shown that in all four cases two or three decades were crucial for creating prose literature. This turn can be described by the term »librarization«: the fact that private book collections and reading habits emerged helps us understand the space into which a host of prose writers were suddenly writing. This reading habit factor (inlcuding reading aloud) has been underplayed in previous scholarship mostly focused on authorial choices and invention. For two of the literatures (Greek, French) the fast dynamics of the rise of prose has already been identified and discussed, but for the two others (Latin, Old Norse), the observation is new. It is also suggested that the exactly contemporary rise of French and Old Norse prose (c. 1200-1230) most probably is connected. The four literatures are each shown in chronological charts so as to visualize the timeline and the relation between poetic and prosaic works. The article furthermore reflects on a number of characteristics and implications of prose literature by drawing on comparisons and contrasts between the ancient and the medieval, important among which is the profound effect of prose librarization on the canonization of existing poetic literature.
medieval literature; prose; poetry; book history; French; Latin; Old Norse; Greek; library history; history of reading
Published Online:
2017/06/30 14:04:34
Object Identifier:
0xc1aa5572 0x00369e43
Rights:All rights reserved.For questions regarding copyright and copies please contact us by email.
MEDIEVAL WORLDS provides a new forum for interdisciplinary and transcultural studies of the Middle Ages. Specifically it encourages and links comparative research between different regions and fields and promotes methodological innovation in transdisciplinary studies. Focusing on the Middle Ages (c. 400-1500 CE, but can be extended whenever thematically fruitful or appropriate), MEDIEVAL WORLDS takes a global approach to studying history in a comparative setting.
MEDIEVAL WORLDS is open to regular submissions on comparative topics, but also offers the possibility to propose or advertise subjects that lend themselves to comparison. With a view to connecting people working on related topics in different academic environments, we publish calls for matching articles and for contributions on particular issues.
Table of Contents
Walter POHL, Editor’s Introduction
The Sudden Success of Prose –
a Comparative View of Greek, Latin, Old French and Old Norse
Lars Boje Mortensen
Could Isidore’s Chronicle Have Delighted Cicero? A Response
Richtard W. Burgess and Michael Kulikowski
Revisiting Pre-Modern Ethnicity and Nationhood: Preface
Ilya Afanasyev and Nicholas S. M. Matheou
»Becoming English«: Nationality, Terminology,
and Changing Sides in the Late Middle Ages
Andrea Ruddick
Reinventing Roman Ethnicity in High and Late Medieval Byzantium
Yannis Stouraitis
The Characteristics of Bodies and Ethnicity c. 900-1200
Claire Weeda
Rethinking Ethnicity and ›Otherness‹ in Early Anglo-Saxon England
James M. Harland
Church, Apostle and People in Early Ireland
Patrick Wadden
Digitising Patterns of Power (DPP):
Applying Digital Tools in the Analysis of Political and Social Transformations
in the Historical Region of Macedonia (12th–14th Centuries)
Mihailo St. Popović and Veronika Polloczek
The Bible in Historical Perception and Writing
of the Transcultural Iberian Societies, Eighth to Twelfth Centuries
Matthias Tischler und Patrick Marschner
The journal is funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).
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