13th century
A01=Mary Franklin-Brown
Author_Mary Franklin-Brown
authoritative statements
Category=DSBB
Category=NH
commentary
compilation
diverse discourses
encyclopedia
encyclopedic texts
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
europe
heterotopias
history
imaginative writing
imago mundi
intellectual work
jean de meun
latin language
libraries
medieval european literature
poets
ramon llull
research
romanciers
scholastic age
scholasticism
speculum
textual practices
thesaurus
vincent of beauvais
Product details
- ISBN 9780226260686
- Weight: 794g
- Dimensions: 16 x 24mm
- Publication Date: 01 Sep 2012
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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The thirteenth century saw such a proliferation of new encyclopedic texts that more than one scholar has called in the "century of the encyclopedias." Variously referred to as a speculum, thesaurus, or imago mundi - the term encyclopedia was not commonly applied to such books until the eighteenth century - these texts were organized in such a way that a reader could easily locate a collection of authoritative statements on any given topic. Because they reproduced, rather than simply summarized, parts of prior texts, these compilations became libraries in miniature. In this groundbreaking study, Mary Franklin-Brown examines writings in Latin, Catalan, and French that are connected to the encyclopedic movement: Vincent of Beauvais' "Speculum Maius", Ramon Llull's "Arbor Scientiae" and Libre de meravelles, and Jean de Meun's "Continuation of the Roman de la Rose". Franklin-Brown analyzes the order of knowledge in these challenging texts; the diverse discourses that they absorb from preexisting classical, patristic, and medieval writing; and the ways in which the juxtaposition of those discourses alters their interplay.
In doing so, she suggests revisions to our understanding of scholastic literary and intellectual practices, and a more nuanced view of medieval reading as an activity that involved evaluating, harmonizing, or even overlooking some passages in order to adjudicate meaning.
Mary Franklin-Brown is assistant professor in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Minnesota.
