NEW Publication: "The Canons of Medieval Literature from the Middle Ages to the Twenty-First Century"
Lars Boje Mortensen sketches some of the important turning points of the parameters of textual canonicity, in the Middle Ages themselves, as well as in the early modern and modern period.
Taking literature in the wide sense of the entire handwritten book-culture of the European Middle Ages (here with focus on Latin Christendom), this article by Lars Boje Mortensen sketches some of the important turning points of the parameters of textual canonicity, in the Middle Ages themselves, as well as in the early modern and modern period. These critical junctures lie around 1050, 1300, 1450 and 1800. In this article, book-technical and linguistic accessibility is suggested as an agent of change in itself – in addition to the factors of cultural politics, ideologies and shifting tastes. In the second part of the article a model is proposed for assessing and measuring the canons operative today – still basically faithful to the romantic turn around 1800. The paper ends with re ections on how the present age of radical accessibility puts us at another historical watershed in how we engage with the rich textual record of the Middle Ages.
Read and download the article here.