Voicing your voice : the fiction of a life : Early Twelfth-Century letter collections and the case of Bernard of Clairvaux

In following the evolution of the ordering principles of letter collections of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, this contribution tries to demonstrate that a corpus epistolarum is much more than a collection of individual missives. The collection as a whole has a message to convey. Careful analysis of the arrangement of the letters and of the different accents it creates does not perhaps teach the modern reader much about events of the time but it does have a great deal to teach him or her about the compilers' qualities and the messages they wanted to convey. The article wants to achieve this aim by presenting the epistolary collections of Gerbert d'Aurillac, Hildebert of Lavardin, and Bernard of Clairvaux

Medieval epicity and the deconstruction of classical epic

In the literary history of epic poetry medieval Latin epics do not very often appear. Poems that conform to epical standards seem rare or even absent. Simultaneously, however, vernacular epic flourishes and is recognised as such. For that reason, one might wonder if the apparent absence of medieval Latin epic is not rather due to the scholars’ eyes that perhaps are too much preconditioned by a classicist understanding of ‘epicity’. This contribution wants to open up the discussion by presenting medieval Latin epicity as a very specific and conscious way of dealing with the classical models, more based upon deconstruction and recreation than on the imitation of normative models

Reconstructing literature : reflections on cosmopolitan literatures

This is a general introduction to and reflection on some of the concepts and questions that will be central to JOLCEL, highlighting the fundamental role of schooling in the formation and continuation of literary universes. It is argued, amongst others, that one cannot construe a thorough history of Europe’s national literatures without taking into account their roots in Latin schooling and texts – roots that run far deeper than the (already widely studied) ‘reception of the classical’. Vice versa, we cannot fully understand the internal workings and development of the Latin tradition without taking into account neighbouring, overlapping and competing literatures

'Interfaces' 4

Issue No. 4 is the first open issue of Interfaces: A Journal of Medieval European Literatures. It contains contributions by Henry Bainton (12th-century historiography), Lucie Doležalová (parabiblical texts and the canon), Máire Ní Mhaonaigh (Irish literary culture in Latin and Irish), Isabel Varillas Sánchez (legends of composition of canonical texts, Septuaginta), Wim Verbaal (letter collections, Bernard of Clairvaux), and Jonas Wellendorf (canons of skaldic poets in the 12th/13th century), preceded by a brief Introduction by the editors

Negen muzen, tien geboden. Historische en methodologische gevalstudies over de interactie tussen literatuur en ethiek

Literature traditionally holds a special place in society. This fact can be ascribed especially to literature’s unique capability to urge its audience and readers to allow a voice other than their own to resound within. And yet, literature’s role raises questions regarding one’s responsibility and engagement – questions that nearly every generation asks itself time and again with an ever changing urgency. Eight literary scholars from the research group ‘Literature – Ethics – Law’ (Ghent University) focus on this complex dialogue between literature and ethics. In the process, they arrive at answers that tease out crucial historical developments (from Plato to HIV/AIDS-prose), while also attending to the impact of methodological reevaluations during the search for such answers

Rediscovery and Canonization: The Roman Classics in the Middle Ages

Issue 3 of Interfaces: A Journal of Medieval European Literatures explores the theme of the rediscovery and canonization of the Roman classics in medieval Western European literary culture, beginning in the eleventh century and reaching a wide impact on literary and intellectual life in the twelfth century. It is headed by an article by Birger Munk Olsen whose immense and comprehensive work of cataloguing and analyzing the entire record of manuscripts containing Roman classics copied before 1200 is nearing completion (L‘étude des auteurs classiques aux XIe et XIIe siècles, 5 vols). Within our journal’s scope of medieval European literature we have found it both rewarding and fitting to take Munk Olsen’s work as a prism for what is a striking literary phenomenon across most geographies and chronologies of medieval Europe: the engagement with the pre-Christian classics.The catalogue and the synthesis by Munk Olsen put many kinds of new studies on a firm footing. In this issue of Interfaces we present three 'frontiers' or types of scholarship on the rediscovery and canonization of the Roman classics all taking their cue from the meticulous way L’étude has charted out this territory