The first book in English to examine one of the most important and influential texts from a literary perspective.
Le Devisement du Monde (1298), better though inaccurately known in English as
Marco Polo’s Travels, is one of only a handful of medieval texts that remain iconic today for European cultural history, and Marco Polo isone of only a handful of medieval writers who still enjoys instant name-recognition. Yet there is little awareness of the
Devisement’s complex history and development.
This book examines the text from a fresh, literary viewpoint, drawing upon a range of different disciplines and approaches: philology, manuscript studies, narratology, cultural history, postcolonial studies and theory. It contains comparative readings of multiple versions of thetext in French, Italian and Latin, Rather than offering a Eurocentric vision of the world grounded in a sense of the absolute alterity of the non-Christian world as is often asserted, the author shows how the
Devisement expounds a sense of the relative nature of difference, crucially positioning Marco uncannily between two worlds (East and West), just as he is positioned awkwardly between two languages, French and Italian, and (in modern receptionat least) awkwardly between two literary histories. The author also calls into question traditional accounts of the use of French outside France in the Middle Ages and offers a re-assessment of Marco Polo’s position in the evolution of European travel writing.
Simon Gaunt is Professor of French Language and Literature at King’s College London.
Le Devisement du Monde (1298), better though inaccurately known in English as
Marco Polo’s Travels, is one of only a handful of medieval texts that remain iconic today for European cultural history, and Marco Polo isone of only a handful of medieval writers who still enjoys instant name-recognition. Yet there is little awareness of the
Devisement’s complex history and development.
This book examines the text from a fresh, literary viewpoint, drawing upon a range of different disciplines and approaches: philology, manuscript studies, narratology, cultural history, postcolonial studies and theory. It contains comparative readings of multiple versions of thetext in French, Italian and Latin, Rather than offering a Eurocentric vision of the world grounded in a sense of the absolute alterity of the non-Christian world as is often asserted, the author shows how the
Devisement expounds a sense of the relative nature of difference, crucially positioning Marco uncannily between two worlds (East and West), just as he is positioned awkwardly between two languages, French and Italian, and (in modern receptionat least) awkwardly between two literary histories. The author also calls into question traditional accounts of the use of French outside France in the Middle Ages and offers a re-assessment of Marco Polo’s position in the evolution of European travel writing.
Simon Gaunt is Professor of French Language and Literature at King’s College London.
€28.99
Table of Content
Introduction:Le Devisement du Monde: textual tradition and genre
Narrative voice and style: ‘ego Marcus Paulo’
Language and translation: ‘in lingua Galica dicitur’
Knowledge, marvels and other religions: ‘oculis propriis videt’
Diversity and alterity: ‘diversarum regionum mundanas diversitates’
Conclusion: ‘et ipse non notavit nisi pauca aliqua, que adhuc in mente retinebat’
Bibliography
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Language English ● Format PDF ● Pages 212 ● ISBN 9781782041139 ● File size 22.2 MB ● Publisher Boydell & Brewer ● City Woodbridge ● Country GB ● Published 2013 ● Downloadable 24 months ● Currency EUR ● ID 7034810 ● Copy protection Adobe DRM
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