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'' 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; the fifth considers re-composition as a counterpart to dismemberment and problematises 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.>

Product details

• Authors: Marco Formisano, Paolo Felice Sacchi
• Assisted by: Marco Formisano (Editor), Formisano Marco (Editor), Paolo Felice Sacchi (Editor)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 18.04.2024
• EAN: 9781350281974
• ISBN: 978-1-350-28197-4
• No. of pages: 316
• Dimensions: 154 mm x 232 mm x 18 mm
• Series: sera tela: Studies in Late Antique Literature and Its Reception; Sera Tela: Studies in Late Ant
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Antiquity; HISTORY / Ancient / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Ancient & Classical, LITERARY COLLECTIONS / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Comparative Literature, Comparative Literature, Classical texts, Ancient World, Literary studies: classical, early & medieval, Literature: history & criticism, Ancient History, Ancient history: to c 500 CE, Literary studies: ancient, classical and medieval, Ancient, classical and medieval texts