Homo Legens: Styles et Pratiques de Lecture: Analyses Comparées des Traditions Orales et Écrites au Moyen Âge – Styles and Practices of Reading: Comparative Analyses of Oral and Written Traditions in the Middle Ages, ed. Svetlana Loutchitsky and Marie-Christine Varol (Turnhout, 2010: USML 26), ii+230 pp. ISBN-13: 978-2-503-53409-1.
How can we discover traces of oral culture in medieval sources, if we only possess oral matter in written form? Does only what is written survive, whereas what is oral does not remain? What is the status of orality in medieval society? The studies collected in this volume discuss the links between the oral and written traditions in medieval literature, by analysing literary monuments from the most diverse backgrounds, both geographically and linguistically: from medieval Spain via the Byzantine Empire and the Crusader states to late medieval and early modern Turkey. An interdisciplinary enquiry by an international group of scholars from different backgrounds allows us to define the modes of tradition of medieval texts and the forms of their memorisation, and to decipher their modes of reading and their appropriation. The book also suggests a methodology for research into indications of orality and for the analysis of the intertextual links between literary works. This enquiry, undertaken within the framework of the international project Homo legens, provides an efficacious tool for the the study of practices of reading and writing.
Contents:
Svetlana Loutchitsky and Marie-Christine Varol, “Introduction”
Tivadar Palagyi, “Métaphrase et mise en roman: étude comparée des indices d’oralité chez Anne Comnène et Guillaume de Tyr”
Svetlana Loutchitsky, “‘Veoir’ et ‘oïr’, legere et audire : réflexions sur les interactions entre traditions orale et écrite dans les sources relatives à la Première croisade”
Marie-Christine Varol, “La tradition des textes sur Alexandre le Grand dans un proverbier glosé judéo-espagnol contemporain”
Sophia Menache, “Orality in Chronicles: Texts and Historical Contexts”
Marta López Izquierdo, “La mimesis de la parole dans La Celestina: une approche linguistique de l’oralité”
Arzu Öztürkmen, “Performance in Late Medieval Turkish Texts: Signs of Orality in Literary and Historical Sources”