IMC 2006: Sessions
Session 613: Emotions and Gesture in Early Medieval Latin Literature
Tuesday 11 July 2006, 11.15-12.45
| Sponsor: | Medieval Studies Program, University of Wisconsin, Madison / Interdisciplinary Center for Medieval Studies, Universität Salzburg |
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| Organiser: | Maria Elisabeth Dorninger, Institut für Germanistik, Universität Salzburg |
| Moderator/Chair: | Maria Elisabeth Dorninger, Institut für Germanistik, Universität Salzburg |
| Paper 613-a | Tribute to a Teacher: The Meaning of Gesture in the Dedication Image of Rabanus's In honorem sanctae crucis (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin, Manuscripts and Palaeography |
| Paper 613-b | Alcuin's Bird Poetry and the Emotions (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin, Rhetoric |
| Paper 613-c | Emotions, Gesture, and Symbolic Communication in Notker's Gesta Karoli (Language: English) Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Latin |
| Abstract | This session will concentrate on emotions and codes of gesture as these are instanced in early medieval Latin literature, both in theory and in practice. From encyclopedic treatments to poetry and to anecdotes, aspects of human feeling and behaviour will be traced to reveal underlying social codes in the early Middle Ages. Abstract paper -a: The first dedication image in Rabanus Maurus's In honorem sanctae crucis portrays Alcuin guiding and encouraging a young Rabanus to present a copy of his book to St. Martin, the patron saint of Tours. The ways Rabanus uses the tradition, with Alcuin as guide and mentor, both restraining and encouraging him, represents more than simply copying a tradition of presentation images. He makes frequent statements in his writings acknowledging the profound debt he felt towards Alcuin so that this particular image, traditional as it is in one way, may also be read as incorporating a very moving tribute to the man who made Rabanus who he was. |