The German literature of the later Middle Ages is a source of intense and diversified scholarship. But few studies focus on the production and circulation of literary manuscripts, or on what the medieval book can reveal about textuality and cultural reception. Westphal's book attempts to cast light on this gap in our knowledge. It treats an important kind of manuscript produced in German in the later medieval period, namely the collection of short texts written in couplets. Over 50 MSS of this type are analyzed and it is ...
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The German literature of the later Middle Ages is a source of intense and diversified scholarship. But few studies focus on the production and circulation of literary manuscripts, or on what the medieval book can reveal about textuality and cultural reception. Westphal's book attempts to cast light on this gap in our knowledge. It treats an important kind of manuscript produced in German in the later medieval period, namely the collection of short texts written in couplets. Over 50 MSS of this type are analyzed and it is shown that scribes ordered their texts neither randomly nor according to strict criteria, but in ways that have to do with the literary system of the era. Manuscript organization precedes, but has a bearing on, the emergence of concepts of genre, authorship, and literary history. The book challenges the formalist assumption that the manuscript has only an external history as an artefact or possession, but that internally it is a mere receptacle.
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