Writing and Reading in Medieval Manuscript Culture: The Translation and Transmission of the Story of Elye in Old French and Old Norse Literary Contexts

Georgieva Eriksen, Stefka

ISBN 10: 2503547796 / ISBN 13: 9782503547794

Published by Brepols Publishers, 2014

About this Item

multilingual edition. 257 pages. 9.00x6.25x0.75 inches. In Stock.

Seller Inventory # __2503547796

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Writing and Reading in Medieval Manuscript Culture: The Translation and Transmission of the Story of Elye in Old French and Old Norse Literary Contexts
• Publisher: Brepols Publishers
• Publication Date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 2503547796
• ISBN 13: 9782503547794
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Brand New
• Weight: 0.62 kilograms

About this title

Synopsis

This book relates a story about the writing, reading, and reception of one text in three different cultural and political contexts across Europe. The focus is on the story of the Christian knight Elye and his Saracen princess Rosamunde, which was translated into Old Norse in the thirteenth century. This is a study of three of the manuscripts in which the work is preserved: one Old French manuscript from Flanders (BnF, fr. 25516, c. 1280) and two Old Norse manuscripts, one from Norway (DG 4-7 fol., c. 1270) and one from Iceland (Holm Perg 6 4 to, c. 1400). These manuscripts represent three different rhetorical and communicative situations and show how the writing and reading of the same text was conditioned by the respective cultural and political environment. The book innovatively conveys Old Norse culture as an active respondent, participant, and thus modulator of European literary tendencies. Tracing the translation, transmission, and transformation of the text throughout Europe redefines aspects of the Latin-vernacular nexus in the Middle Ages, and thus presents a new and valuable voice in the discussion of medieval European literary and cultural systems.