Manuscript poetics : materiality and textuality in medieval Italian literature / Francesco Marco Aresu.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Aresu, Francesco Marco, author.

Contributor:

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Series:

William and Katherine Devers series in Dante and medieval Italian literature ; v. 22.

William and Katherine Devers Series in Dante and Medieval Italian Literature ; volume 22

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Italian literature--To 1400--History and criticism.

Italian literature.

Manuscripts, Italian.

Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321. Vita nuova.

Dante Alighieri.

Boccaccio, Giovanni, 1313-1375. Teseida.

Boccaccio, Giovanni.

Petrarca, Francesco, 1304-1374. Rime.

Petrarca, Francesco.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xviii, 509 pages : color illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Notre Dame, Indiana : University of Notre Dame Press, [2023]

Summary:

"This original study is both an investigation into the material foundations of literature and a reflection on notions of textuality, writing, and media in late medieval and early modern Italy. Francesco Marco Aresu examines the book-objects of manuscripts and early printed editions, asking questions about the material conditions of production, circulation, and reception of literary works. He invites scholars to reconcile reading with seeing (and with touching) and to challenge contemporary presumptions about technological neutrality and the modes of interfacing and reading. Manuscript Poetics investigates the correspondences between textuality and materiality, content and medium, and visual-verbal messages and their physical support through readings of Dante Alighieri's Vita nova, Giovanni Boccaccio's Teseida, and Francesco Petrarca's canzoniere (Rerum vulgarium fragmenta). Aresu shows that Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarca evaluated and deployed the tools of scribal culture to shape, signal, or layer meanings beyond those they conveyed in their written texts. Medieval texts, Aresu argues, are uniquely positioned to provide this perspective, and they are foundational to the theoretical understanding of new forms and materials in our media-saturated contemporary world"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: Materiality and method

Part I: Materiality as narrative in Dante's Vita nova. Scriptor in fabula

The author as scribe

The scribe as author

Appendix to Part I. Pulcra metaphora de quaterno et volumine

Part II: Materiality and authority in Boccaccio's Teseida. Picture-book (without pictures)

The textual proliferation of the Teseida

Part III: Materiality and poetics in Petrarca's Sestinas. Materiality and meter

Carmina figurata

Afterword: In praise of materiality.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 409-489) and index.

ISBN:

9780268206499

026820649X

9780268206482

0268206481

OCLC:

1372278686

Publisher Number:

90101148283