In Search of the Culprit : Aspects of Medieval Authorship

Open Access Despite various poststructuralist rejections of the idea of a singular author-genius, the question of a textual archetype that can be assigned to a named author is still a common scholarly phantasm. The Romantic idea that an author created a text or even a work autonomously is transferred even to pre-modern literature today. This ignores the fact that the transmission of medieval and early modern literature creates variances that could not be justified by means of singular authorships. The present volume offers new theoretical approaches from English, German, and Scandinavian studies to provide a historically more adequate approach to the question of authorship in premodern literary cultures. Authorship is no longer equated with an extra-textual entity, but is instead considered a narratological, inner- and intertextual function that can be recognized in the retrospectively established beginnings of literature as well as in the medial transformation of texts during the early days of printing. The volume is aimed at interested scholars of all philologies, especially those dealing with the Middle Ages or Early Modern Period.

Despite various poststructuralist rejections of the idea of a singular author-genius, the question of a textual archetype that can be assigned to a named author is still a common scholarly phantasm. The Romantic idea that an author created a text or even a work autonomously is transferred even to pre-modern literature today. This ignores the fact that the transmission of medieval and early modern literature creates variances that could not be justified by means of singular authorships. The present volume offers new theoretical approaches from English, German, and Scandinavian studies to provide a historically more adequate approach to the question of authorship in premodern literary cultures. Authorship is no longer equated with an extra-textual entity, but is instead considered a narratological, inner- and intertextual function that can be recognized in the retrospectively established beginnings of literature as well as in the medial transformation of texts during the early days of printing. The volume is aimed at interested scholars of all philologies, especially those dealing with the Middle Ages or Early Modern Period.

Despite poststructuralist rejections of the idea of a singular author-genius, the question of a textual archetype that can be assigned to a named author is still a common scholarly phantasm. This volume sets new standards by applying current theoretical approaches to the question of concepts of authorship in medieval and early modern literature. The basic thesis is that authorship is a narratological function rather than an extra-textual entity The book series Andere AEsthetik - Studien (AAES) (Different Aesthetics - Studies) mainly comprises monographs and collections of scholarly articles that address the research programme of the Collaborative Research Centre 1391 in a disciplinary perspective. The book series Andere Ästhetik – Studien (AÄS) (Different Aesthetics – Studies) mainly comprises monographs and collections of scholarly articles that address the research programme of the Collaborative Research Centre 1391 in a disciplinary perspective.