Epitomic writing in late antiquity and beyond : forms of unabridged writing /

This volume makes a powerful argument for epitome (combining textual dismemberment and re-composition) as a broad hermeneutic field encompassing multifarious historical, conceptual and aesthetical concerns. The contributors gather from across the globe to present case studies of the 'summing up...

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Bibliographic Details
Other Authors: Formisano, Marco (Editor), Sacchi, Paolo Felice (Editor)
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2023.
Series:Sera tela - studies in late antique literature and its reception.
Subjects:
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Summary:This volume makes a powerful argument for epitome (combining textual dismemberment and re-composition) as a broad hermeneutic field encompassing multifarious historical, conceptual and aesthetical concerns. The contributors gather from across the globe to present case studies of the 'summing up' of cultural artefacts, literary and artistic, in epitomic writing, and as a collective they demonstrate the importance of this genre that has been largely overlooked by scholars. The volume is divided into five sections. The first showcases the broad range of fields from which epitomic analysis can be made, from classics to postmodernism to cultural memory studies, the second focuses in on epitome as dismemberment in writing from late antiquity to the modern day, the third considers a 'productive negativity' of epitomic writings and how they are useful tools for investigating the very borders and paradoxes of language, the fourth brings this to bear on materiality and the fifth considers re-composition as a counterpart to dismemberment and problematizes it. Across the volume, examples are taken from important late antique writers such as Ausonius, Clement of Alexandria, Macrobius, Nepos, Nonius Marcellus and Symphosius, and from modern authors such as Antonin Artaud, Barthes, Nabokov and Pascal Quignard. Epitomic writings about art from decorated tabulae to sarcophagi are also included, as are epitomic images themselves in the form of manuscript illustrations that sum up their text.
Item Description:Selection of papers from a conference entitled "Unabridged. Epitome from fragmentation to recomposition (and back again)", held 5-6 June 2018 at the Academia Belgica in Rome.
Physical Description:xiv, 281 pages, [16] pages of color plates : illustrations ; 25 cm.
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:135028193X
1350281972
9781350281936
9781350281974